


the future runs through our bones

by lilliputianmerriell



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Gender Dysphoria, Gender or Sex Swap, Heavy Drinking, Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Invisibility, K-company being a small dysfunctional family, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Telepathy, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-25 07:47:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 61,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13829685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilliputianmerriell/pseuds/lilliputianmerriell
Summary: Back in America the members of K-company are trying to adjust to the monotony of peacetime respectively when the aftermath of a strange storm sends them all unwillingly crashing back into each others’ lives under the most bizarre circumstances.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shout-out to Snafurougarou and All-the-ships-are-sailing for helping me out with this, I'm really grateful! I will probably bother you both again soon for more useful advice (apologies in advance). And thanks to all the support this idea got on Tumblr, it was crazy (hopefully it lives up to expectations)!
> 
> Enjoy!

The Pacific war has taught Burgie many lessons about life. It was unpredictable and it was unfair, and men were not above its’ unforgivable nature.

Burgie had seen a beach full of boys, barely men, lying dead in the sand of an island in the middle of nowhere. Fighting a fight that wasn’t really theirs to fight, but did it to protect their loved ones. A life of war had showed him rivers of blood and shattered bones, smeared across foliage of greens like some sort of morbid piece of modern art. Burgie had seen mothers clutch onto their new-borns as their screamed for a god that had long since abandoned them.

The lessons of a life of war were harsh and gruesome, but in the middle of all the gore and filth there was a comradery and trust between the men, the survivors of that life, that Burgie believed was as deep and valuable as any marriage.

Glancing between the two men sitting with him on the train traveling eastwards, Burgie feels his heart clench as he realizes that comradery is about to come to an end because that life of war was coming to an end.  

Neither Sledge nor Snafu seems aware of his morose mood, the two of them chatting easily between themselves as they share stories and secret smiles. They were too wrapped up in their own little world to notice Burgie’s pensiveness.

Their inattention gave Burgie the chance to consider the two. There was Eugene’s eyes which had hardened from war had regained some of the kindness they’d lost as they gazed upon Snafu. Then there was Snafu’s easy smile which would turn into a wistful one as soon as Eugene looked away, as if he knew something that the rest of them didn’t. They both looked like they had barely stepped into adulthood, yet there was something about them that made them seem beyond their years, scared by the same lessons of life Burgie had.

“Thanks,” Snafu tells him later as Burgie is about to step off the train, heart heavy from Florence’s absence on the platform. “For doin' all you did to keep us from gettin' our fool heads shot off.”

“You're good marines,” Burgie replies, sharing a small smile before stepping onto Texan soil for the first time in years to be greeted with an armful of his little brother. As much as he would mourn their companionship, he was looking forward to this new life of peace filled with family – a normal life.

For the first two weeks, the normalcy of civilian life felt very much like how Burgie had imagined peace to feel like while he’d been over there at those godforsaken islands. The mornings are spent out in the fields with his brother while the afternoons are spent running errands around town. By the evening, the whole family is gathered around the dinner table, and Burgie patiently listens to his mother and father gossip about the neighbours. It’s not exciting or eventful, and Burgie thinks he can deal with this new mundane reality.  

Life always had a funny way of lulling you into a false sense of security before it’d rip it all away though.

It starts with faint whispers that follow Burgie almost wherever he goes. He thinks he might be going insane, that the war had affected him more than he originally thought. Because only people who had completely lost their minds heard and saw shit that wasn’t there, right? Like Daniels who had started counting Japanese soldiers on an abandoned airfield in the dead of night.

They’d taken Daniels away. Probably put him somewhere where he wasn’t a danger to himself or others. Was hopefully getting the help he needed, was hopefully not seeing Nips around every corner anymore.

This was different though. Burgie still had his wits about him, still knew what was real and what wasn’t. The faint whispers he was hearing was definitely not real and was most likely just some side-effect of his exhaustion catching up to him. He just needed to let himself rest properly and it would go away, he was certain.

Days pass but the whispers only gets worse; getting louder and clearer, forming into tangible words and complete sentences carrying actual meaning. Most of it was mundane things like having to go to the store to buy some bread, having to wash the car, or do homework. All things Burgie suspects weren’t what people suffering from shellshock usually heard. Other times, the whispers were more like feelings. They’d lost their distinct quality but were rather a flurry of concern and worry that Burgie struggles to make sense of even when he tried. Sometimes they were no longer whispers or quiet words but loud and angry as they broke out into what sounded like a longwinded, one-sided argument. Burgie did his best to tune those out because it gave him a headache having to listen to them while he could also hear his parents chatting pleasantly in the next room. 

Burgie discovers that the only times he isn’t plagued by the voices was when he was in the fields behind the house or in the barn when there was no one around, and he finds himself spending more and more time there as the days progress. It was the only relief he got as the constant stream of voices were there even when the rest of the world and people around him was silent.

It frustrates him that despite finally being back with his beloved family he was forced into isolation. Because of the war which was supposed to be over now, because of another life he was no longer supposed to be part of. He deserved to finally have some peace, but the intrusive voices on top of the chatter of his family and friends at home and in town were becoming too much. Particularly when the voices in his head starts taking the qualities and characteristics of those around him.

He wonders if he should tell his parents about it, but quickly dismisses the idea as they already seem to thread on eggshells around him. His father hardly even looks him in the eye anymore. They already consider him damaged, fragile goods, and mentioning what he was currently experiencing would be like adding fuel to the fire and then dropping a shitload of explosive on top of it.

There was also the very real possibility that if he did tell them he would wind up like Daniels in some asylum somewhere. After so long away from them, Burgie desperately did not want to be taken away from his family again. He’d only just returned home from a long time in deprived, inhumane conditions, he did not intend to expose himself just so they could lock him up in slightly different deprived, inhumane conditions with a straitjacket on.

No, he’d rather keep this to himself.

If he could share a bunk with a filthy, war-torn Snafu Shelton on that overcrowded raft the Corps dared called a boat that shipped them from Cape Gloucester to Peleliu, then he could power through this too.  

At some point in his third week back he’s called in for dinner after a whole day out in the field working on the crops. The day had been peaceful and quiet because of this, so when he steps into the dining room and takes a seat he’s struck with how audible the voices has become in just the past few hours. They sound exactly like his family members, only with a distinct phantasmal quality to them, but none of them were talking so it couldn’t possibly be them.

Burgie frowns and does his best to mute out the voices before they drive him actually crazy. He’s found that he is able to tune them out well enough, basically turning it into white noise so he at least won’t have listen to what they are saying. It takes up a lot of his focus and gives him a slight headache to do so, but it beat the pounding migraines he’d been getting lately and he doubted that his family would question him being a bit distant.

He’d come to the conclusion that action was needed; he couldn’t live like this as it was disrupting his day-to-day life. The issue was that Burgie had no idea where to start getting rid of the voices, and he couldn’t see any way to fix it without asking for outside help. If things progressed as they were now however, there might not be the option of asking for help, because there was no way he would be able to hide that something was wrong with him if the voices got any louder and started drowning out others actually talking. Someone was going to notice he wasn’t right anymore.

Picking absentmindedly on his food, and he doesn’t hear that his father is trying to get his attention until his brother nudges him in the side with his elbow, breaking his concentration and making all the voices come rushing back in, loud and concerned. Burgie shakes his head, doing his best to listen to what his father is telling him even though voices make it difficult to concentrate on his words.

“– and Mr. Thompson were lookin’ for some extra set o’ hands with fixing the farm house. I told him I’d ask if it’d be somethin’ you’d be interested in. Get some extra cash and some fresh air. What do you think about that, Romus?” ‘ _maybe it’d help take his mind off this whole war business as well, boy’s not been himself since he returned from those damn islands, not hearing back from that Aussie is certainly not helpin’ matters either’._ The words were distinctly his father’s, but the strange thing was that his lips had long since stopped moving. He was only looking at Burgie expectantly as the monologue about the war and Florence resonates through the dining room just like another part of the conversation.   

Burgie glances over at his mother in a desperate hope that she’d heard it too, but her mouth was only pressed into a thin smile. Her voice is clear as glass however, _‘why won’t you listen when I tell you that your son needs time to recover, stop pushing the him, he will come talk to us when he’s ready, how many times do I have to tell you to trust him’._

Dawning suspicion and panic takes root and starts to unfold in Burgie’s mind, and he quickly excuses himself from the table, pushing away and turning over the chair in his wake as he runs out of the house.

Outside, cold air rushes into his lungs and clears his head of the worried voices that had followed him there, and he slows down to a brisk walk when he’s settled some distance between himself and the house.

Maybe he is finally losing it for real, but the realisation now blooming in his mind seem so utterly ridiculous while at the same time makes too much sense for him to dismiss it. Could it be possible that the voices he’d heard for the past week had been thoughts? That every comment, every observation, had been the internal monologue of his mother, father, brother? How was it even remotely possible? Was it even real or was this just part of his crazy?

Feeling slight ill by the implications alone, Burgie hides in their barn like he had done for the last few day, hoping to get his head in order before he walks back into the house.

He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to go back there, knowing now that all the concern and quiet arguments he’d heard the past week had been his parents’ thoughts regarding him. It made him feel terrible to know he was the source of all their worries, that he and his health put such a strain on their relationship.  

The sound of shuffling drew Burgie’s attention to one of the stalls where one of the cattle was fenced in for the winter. Her name was Betsy, and she’d been in the family for as long as Burgie was able to remember. She wasn’t producing milk anymore, but they hadn’t had the heart to put her down when she’d been a part of the family for so long, even if she’d probably be on her last leg pretty soon due to her old age.

Walking up to her, he strokes along her flank, taking comfort in her solid presence as he says tenderly, “Hey there ol’ girl.”

‘ _hello child’._

He hears her reply as clear as glass and he withdraws his hand with a surprised jolt. The barn falls back into silence as he stares at the cow disbelievingly then down at his hand that is twitching anxiously. That did not just fucking happen.

Burgie thought that the war had pretty much mentally prepared him for all the curveballs life might throw at him but hearing his cow’s thoughts had definitely not been it. Turning on his heel, he walks out of the barn as calmly as he’s able, doing his best not to focus on the horror settling in the pit of his stomach as he ignores the chill of the air and lays down in the field outside to think of a solution to these new problems.

When he sneaks back into the house hours later, he’s no closer to figuring anything out and his horror and disbelief have been replaced by panic and frustration as he realises that there is no one he could consult about this without them sending him straight to the nut house. He was at a loss of what to do.  

Only minutes after he had slipped into his bed, there’s a careful knock on his door before his mother pokes her head in with a whispered, “Romus?”

“Ma,” he acknowledges in hushed tones as he does his best to dismiss her thoughts which threatens to flood his head.   

Shutting the door carefully behind her, she enters his room and sits down gently on his bed. “Is everything alright?” _‘what made you walk out earlier, you had me worried, what is bothering you, please tell me, please-please-please’._

“I’m fine.” It’s a blatant lie, but there’s nothing he can say that won’t concern her further.

His mother might not be able to read minds, but she knew when he was hiding something from her, so she keeps on pressing as he lays a hand atop his covers. “Do not lie to me Romus Valton Burgin. What’s on your mind, hm? Tell your ol’ Ma what’s bothering you.” 

The weight of her worry is almost overwhelming and as much as he wishes to tell her everything, he knows that he cannot. He’d only add to it and make it worse, and that would be the last thing he wanted to do.

Afraid what will spill from his lips if he opens his mouth, he only shakes his head in reply, feeling very much like he used to when he was six and was holding back tears because the older boys had picked on him and he’d been afraid telling her would get him in trouble. His mother had used the same loving tone with him then as she was doing now, and it made his throat tighten alarmingly.    

Squeezing his leg, she smiles down at him gently. “Listen, I can’t begin to imagine what you’re going through right now, but maybe, when you feel ready for it, you could come talk to me and help me understand. I can’t make things magically go away, but maybe I can help ease some of the pain of whatever is on your mind.”

When he doesn’t respond right away, doing his best to not just spill all the truths at her right there and then, she gives his leg a final squeeze and gets back up. “Just promise me you will think about it. I know you’ll make the right decision.”

“I promise,” he whispers as she walks out, hearing the faint whisper of _‘good night my sweet boy’_ as she closes the door behind her, and he allows himself to relax.

Flopping onto his back, he stares up at the dark ceiling, turning his mother’s words over in his brain as an idea slowly forms. Maybe his mother couldn’t make things magically go away, but what if someone else could? Or at least be willing to help him. But who would believe him?

Snafu.

Burgie didn’t even need to question it. Snafu never talked much about his home-life and Burgie knew not to press the matter, but from their time spent together and the rare occasion Snafu had let some information slip, Burgie had learned that Snafu came from a very superstitious family with some sort of involvement with folk magic and hoodoo. Burgie had thought it’d been complete bogus at the time, but due to recent turn of events he was willing to be open-minded. Especially if it meant Snafu could help him with his current mind-reading problem. And maybe the man wasn’t quite as educated as Sledge or well-reflected as Jay, but he was faithful, loyal friend and Burgie knew he could entrust him with this secret without Snafu dismissing him as another marine not managing the transition to civilian life.

Yes, Snafu might just be understanding enough to hear him out.

With his mind set, he turns onto his side and buries his face into his pillow, doing his best to block out the noises echoing through the house as he attempts to get some sleep. If he was going through with this, he would need to collect as much rest and patience as he could manage, because he had a strange feeling that life was about to teach him another tough lesson.

On Sunday when everyone else is in church doing their prayers, Burgie jumps onto the ten o’clock train to New Orleans. 

…

Snafu glances at the clock for what feels like the tenth time in the past five minutes, waiting impatiently for that whistle to blow and signal the end of another boring as shit day.

He’d taken a job at one of the lumberyards down by the docs, and it was heavy and uneventful work, and not one he’d prefer if he had more of a choice. As much as he hated it however, at least it paid for his apartment and cigarettes now that he couldn’t rely on the steady cash flow of the Corps anymore.

When he got back he had considered moving back in with his Maman and his little sister in his childhood home outside the city. It was the definitely the cheaper alternative but it didn’t feel fair to them to suddenly intrude on their lives again after he’d spent so many years away, even if Maman kept insisting that he was being ridiculous when he found a small apartment in the city. It was a lot closer to work though and Maman wouldn’t have to worry over him sitting outside at four in the morning smoking because he was unable to sleep.

Civilians just didn’t understand.

He was already sick of hearing all the rich folks that were sitting around fancy cafes around town complain about the state of the economy and rationing while sipping their champagne, when so many families had lost their sons to a terrible war fought on unfamiliar soil. Or those guys on the bus with their newspapers, saying that the war was a waste of money and that the boys sent to the Pacific only spent their days on tropical islands under palm trees surrounded by nude local girls. That those people shouldn’t be hailed like heroes when they’d spent the war were leeching of the tax payers who chosen to stay and keep the country in order for them.

Snafu wanted to punch all those assholes in their face.

His Maman was nothing like that however, she had done her best to understand what he was going through. At one time he’d tried to explain it to her, but in the end it just made him feel like a burden and he hated the feeling that he was a liability and a cause of worry for his family. He’d been the man of the house ever since his father had decided to leave all those years ago, but he didn’t feel like he fit into that role anymore. Not when he could barely look his Maman in the eye. It almost made him wish he was someone else, someone less damaged, just so his little sister didn’t look at him with concern that had no place in a ten-year old’s face.

The whistle signalling the end of his shift finally sounds and Snafu, who has done nothing for the last ten minutes, abandons his station for the weekend. He does his best to ignore the other men at the yard that are already standing by the exit as he passes them to clock out when one of them calls out to him, “Hey, Shelton! Where d’ya think you’re goin’?”

“Home,” Snafu grunts as he gathers his things, not bothering to acknowledge whoever had addressed him any further with details. He didn’t care to know them, and he didn’t like them enough for them to be privy to his personal life.

“Come on man, you’ve been working hard, have a drink with us! Besides, it’s the weekend, live a little!”

Live a little? Snafu wanted to laugh. He was probably among the youngest out of all the men working at the lumberyard, and out of all of them he had probably lived the most in the twenty-four years he’d been alive. None of them had been marines or soldiers, had not looked a Jap with a rifle pointed straight at you right in the eye, had not experienced having to drag dead comrades off the battleground while bullets were hailing around them. In his opinion, Snafu thought he had lived enough for a whole lifetime.   

One of the guys, Snafu thinks his name is Jim, claps Snafu on the back with a friendly smile as he chuckles good-naturedly. “Home this early? Man, your missus must be somethin’, huh?” 

“Don’t have a missus,” Snafu responds deadpan, giving Jim a flat look that had always sent the new replacements running.

Jim seems completely unfazed by Snafu’s obvious hostility as his smile widens. “Even more reason to come out with us then!”

The other men give a collective cheer at this and Snafu glares in their direction.

“Come on, Shelton. What d’ya say? Have a few drinks, maybe even hit it off with a little lady? It’d be easy. Girls nowadays all want to get with a war hero,” Jim says, giving Snafu another hearty clap on the back and a wink.

Snafu would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted by the offer. He had secluded himself to his apartment ever since he returned to New Orleans three weeks ago, hardly seen the outside of its’ four walls except when he went to work or visited Maman’s house. Even though he had a strong dislike for his co-workers, particularly Jim who had yet to remove his arm from him, a night on the town with actual people was maybe just what he needed.

“Fine,” Snafu says, shrugging of Jim’s offensive hand. “I’ll come for one.”

Of course, it hadn’t been just one. Or two, or three, for that matter. By his seventh beer fuckin’ Jim starts buying everyone multiple tequila shots, which was just a recipe for disaster. When the edges of his vision begin to blur and his mind fuzzes over, Snafu starts to wonder why he’d ever agreed to come out with these assholes. He wasn’t even having a good time.

His only saving grace of the evening is the pretty redhead in the tight-fitting dress across the bar who keeps shooting him suggestive glances every now and then, her flirtatious smile making her intentions obvious. Snafu tosses back one last shot of golden liquid before getting up from their table without a word of farewell to the other men sitting there as he approaches the woman with a charming smile.

“Hey,” he says, eyeing her curvy body up and down appreciatively. She was a little older than him, but Snafu had never been one to discriminate because of trivial matters such as age, especially if it meant he would get laid.   

She seems to like the attention and pushes out her chest a bit more as she purrs, “Hey yourself.” She gives him an appraising look of her own, and Snafu feels his dick twitch in his pants.

“How about I buy you a drink, boo?” Snafu gives her a charming smile. He had never had much luck with women, probably because he was never looking for anything serious and ending up saying shit like ‘how about I take you to the back and you show me your caboose’. It never worked, but at least it didn’t give girls the impression that he wanted them for anything but sex. Now though, he was just on the right side of drunk to be charming enough to not be that direct.

“How about we skip the foreplay and get out of here?”

Snafu blinks perplexed at her. He had expected to have to at least introduce himself and buy this lady a drink before she’d let it up for him, but if he could save the cash then he wasn’t opposed to the idea. “Sure.”

“Let’s go to your place. My husband would not be happy if he found a boy like you in our bed,” she says seductively as she runs a finger down his cheek, as if her words were something incredibly sexy and not her admitting to adultery. “He’s an old veteran with a bit of a temper you see and you’ve got such a pretty face, it’d be a shame if he ruined it.”

Alarm bells were ringing in Snafu’s head telling him to abort mission, but the tequila currently coursing through his system was telling those alarm bells to fuck right off because he could get laid tonight with what was apparently a lonely housewife and a hot one at that. 

“Mine it is then,” he says easily, letting the woman loop her arm through his as they exit the bar together.

Thankfully he didn’t live too far away, otherwise this would have been an awkward walk as the woman insisted that the less they knew about each other the better which resulted in the time spent between the bar and his small apartment was as silent as the grave.  

The cold air was starting to clear Snafu’s head somewhat though and he begins to wonder if he should be going through with this. It wasn’t right to fuck another man’s wife, and even Snafu could acknowledge that there was a certain line you just didn’t cross out of respect for a fellow veteran. Who knew, maybe he’d lost his legs or something during the war. It just didn’t feel quite right.

They came to a halt in front of the door leading up to his apartment and while he searches for his keys, he tries to voice his doubt and let this woman down as politely as he was capable, “Ya know, maybe we shouldn’t –”.

“If this is about my husband,” she cut him off without looking in his direction, simply pushing past him into the building as he unlocks and opens the door. “Then screw him. He’s a controlling asshole who thinks I’m his property and only exists to be there at his beck and call. If he can go out and fuck other people, then so can I. Now, take me to your apartment and get this over with. I need to get back home before he does.”

Snafu looks after her dumbfounded as she ascends the stairs before turning to watch him expectantly. He has half a mind to tell her to fuck off for being such a demanding bitch, but just as he thinks this she slips one of the straps of her shoulders suggestively, revealing pale, white skin that contrast her red hair so beautifully that he’s up the staircase and in the bedroom undressing before he’s even aware he’s changed his mind about the matter.

The sex is a disappointing affair.

She’s impatient and obviously thinking about her husband, which wilts his erection until she roughly tugs at it and demand that he fucks her properly. She’s loud and bossy during the whole thing, but he does his best to ignore her and enjoy the pleasurable sensation of his dick inside of her instead.

Images of another particular redhead flashes at the forefront of his mind, an expanse of pearly white skin and fiery hair fanned out over a pillow, beautifully freckled shoulders and long limbs, a thin nose that would bump against his as he presses a kiss to soft, pliant lips.

He decides not to feel guilty about letting his mind wander like it was. This woman was using him exactly the same way he was using her; neither of them was with the person they really wanted, they were both means to an end for each other in that moment.

When he finally comes, he slips out of her and rolls to the other side of the bed, too tired to give a shit if she managed to finish off as well. The soporific effect of post-ejaculation mixes with the dizzying effect of the alcohol and makes him quickly lose grasp with consciousness. He is barely aware enough to hear her annoyed, dissatisfied huff followed not long after by the slamming of a door in the distance as he slips into a dreamless sleep.

Snafu doesn’t know what time it is when he returns from the land of blessed slumber, but it can only be a few hours later as he can see it is still dark outside through the window overlooking the small alley behind his building.

It’s been the first time since he had gotten back to the states that he felt like he’d managed to get some actually decent sleep for even just a few hours and he shoves his head under his pillow with a groan as he mourns the loss of blissful unconsciousness. He briefly entertains the idea of attempting to slip back into it, but the strange, aching sensations that had been gnawing at the back of his mind and hammering in his chest for the past few weeks have returned more intense than ever, and he knows that it’d be a futile effort.

Still, the pleasant warmth from an actual bed makes moving a very unappealing prospect and so he curls up underneath his blankets, hoping to at least manage to relax for another hour before the need for a piss and a smoke becomes too overwhelming.

He feels almost tranquil from having cum only hours earlier and he hums with contentment. Snafu did no longer give a shit whether the woman had been a bossy bitch as the lingering pleasure from the night before makes a pleasant interest stir in his groin, signalling that he wasn’t the only one waking up. Instinctively, his hand travels downwards, tracing the skin below his navel and continues further down as his fingertips trails over coarse pubic hair.

Snafu’s eyes snap open with panic as he’s met with nothing but air where his dick is supposed to be and he rips his blankets off himself in desperation to be greeted by a decidedly more feminine body than he’d fallen asleep in.

The unfamiliar high-pitched shriek that resonates through his apartment makes him slap a hand over his own mouth, utterly shocked by the unfamiliar sound that had just escaped him.

“Shit! Shit, fuck, shit! What the fuck, what the actual FUCK,” he repeats to himself underneath his breath as he scrambles out of the bed in a panic, his legs feeling unmanageable and unresponsive as he tries to get his bearings and get this naked body covered.

Thankfully, the clothes he’d stripped off in a hurry a just few hours earlier were laying right by the foot of the bed and he pulls the items on quicker than Jay could say ‘I shit myself’. Snafu cringes as the t-shirt he’d worn only the day before seemed to have grown two sizes overnight, suddenly reaching all the way down to his mid-thighs, and how his briefs was uncomfortably hugging his hips a bit too tightly.

Stumbling through his small apartment he has to catch himself twice on the furniture, his frantic mind distracting him from paying attention to his surroundings. What the actual fuck was happening? Was this a dream? It certainly didn’t feel like a dream, though he was pretty sure shit like this just didn’t happen in real life. There was just no way this was real.

Just as he thinks this he stubs his toe on the doorframe to the bathroom, landing heavily on the tiled floor as he cradles his injured foot in his hands while letting out a stream of curses. Definitely not a dream then – Jesus fucking Christ, even his feet were tiny.

Supporting himself on the sink, he gets back onto unsteady legs. Eugene had always teased him for having terrible sea legs, but it had never been an issue on land before now.

His fantasies of Eugene from the night before pops up in his mind then, and he cannot help but feel guilty. Yesterday he’d been drunk and let himself give into the fantasy of Eugene being with him, but for the past few weeks he’d done his utmost to distract himself from thinking too much of the man. He just couldn’t let the memory of Eugene’s peaceful face sleeping on that train go however.

Taking a deep breath, Snafu forces himself to push any thought of Eugene to the back of his mind. O _ne crisis at a time, Shelton, your sexual one will have to wait._

And crisis it was. Snafu has to suppress the urge to scream again as he turned his attention to his own reflection. 

The face staring back at him was undoubtedly his, and yet was somehow almost unrecognisable at the same time. All his defining features were still there, but his usually sharp jaw had softened along with his nose. His eyes which size he was already self-conscious of appeared even larger now on the daintier face. The most significant difference however was the wild mane protruding from his head; large, dark curls was standing in every direction in messy tangles, and Snafu gives one of the locks an experimental tug only to hiss at how it stings his scalp.

“Ow.” He rubs at the sore spot, catching the girl in his reflection mirroring his action. Feeling particularly childish in his panic, he sticks his tongue out at her, watching her mimic him perfectly down to the resentful glare he sends in her direction before turning his back to her. 

There was no denying it. As impossible as this all seemed, it was definitely happening to him. His dick had inverted and turned into a vagina while he’d slept. The panic that he was feeling paves way for distraught and worry, and he sits down heavily on the cold bathroom tiles as his mind race to wrap itself around what was happening to him.

Had that woman from last night been a hoodooine? She seemed to fit within the scorned woman category well enough by the way she kept nagging about her good-for-nothing husband, but the jewellery and well-groomed hair didn’t exactly scream swamp-witch to the depths of Snafu’s knowledge about the archetype.

So not a dream and most likely not his disappointing lay from the night before. He was back to square one and all out of possible explanations.

Snafu buries his head in the palms of his hands as he racks his mind for any sort of reason, and shudders as he feels smooth, soft skin where he was supposed to have short, prickly hairs itching his chin.

He draws his face away and examines his hands. Just like his reflection, they were definitely his, yet… not. He recognises the yellow discolouration on his index and middle finger on his right hand from years of smoking his Camels, and the scars and callouses in his palms that have yet to heal over completely after lumbering around with a mortar all day. 

Twisting the hands in the curls atop of his head, he feels an overwhelming sense of fear and he suddenly wishes that his Maman was here.

It was something he hadn’t done since that first night in boot camp while he’d listened to all the other boys snoring loudly and his thoughts were running wild with what he had gotten himself into. In the end he had to sneak outside just to get away from his own anxiety and clear his head. Burgie had caught him then, but instead of alerting their drill sergeant like he was supposed to, he’d snuck out with him and they’d shared the last of his Camels together. Burgie hadn’t really let him out of his sights after that.

Damn, he wishes Burgie was here too. He always seemed to know what to do. Or Sledge, that boy knew more than what was good for him, maybe he would know what had happened to him or at the very least know how to fix him.

As small and very alone he felt in that moment, Snafu forces himself to get a grip and to think about this logically; so, he’s just woken up like this without knowing how or why it had happened, and as far as he knew there was no reasonable or logical explanation to this. This shouldn’t even be fuckin’ possible in the first place, but here he was sitting on his bathroom floor in this… puny girl body.

Maybe he was losing it. Maybe he’d already lost it. Maybe last night had been his breaking-point and now he was having some seriously fucked up hallucinations. Maybe he’d been drugged without his notice and he was having the worst trip of his fucking life. It all seemed a lot more likely than the other option that he’d magically transformed into a female overnight, yet something within him was telling him that it was exactly the case.

“Motherfucker,” he curses to himself and thumps the back of his head against the porcelain rim of his bathtub and stares up at the water-damaged ceiling above. “What am I goin’ ta do?”

Snafu doesn’t know how long he sits like this or at what point his eyes slip shut, but when he opens them again nothing has really changed. The ceiling still has that large, brown stain that needs to be fixed before his upstairs neighbour literally drops by for an unannounced visit, and he is still in this fucking stupid, dwarfed body. The only real change is that he can hear people moving outside on the streets now, so at least some considerable amount of time must have passed.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected exactly, but a great well of frustration hits him when he realises that his new anatomy wasn’t simply going to disappear just like that.

Glancing down at himself, he sees the tiny welts on his chest that are concealed by the thin material of his shirt. Despite their small size, Snafu guesses they were qualified as breasts, and gives them an experimental poke. It doesn’t really feel all that new or different, and he peeks down the collar for closer inspection. They really were nothing special – tits really lost a lot of their appeal when they were on him, he thinks with a huff.

A morbid curiosity manifests in his mind as he recalls what had led to his discovery of the change in the first place and he wonders if it’d feel any different down there now that he wasn’t in a state of complete panic anymore. He’d barely grazed it before, he didn’t even know if all the… bits were in the same state as the rest of him.

Opting for skipping out on his usual foreplay, his fingers aims straight for his nether regions but finds himself hesitating just as his hand hovers over the worn elastic of his briefs, worrying his lips as an overwhelming, sense of _wrongness_ fills his mind that makes him slightly nauseous.

This wasn’t right, this shouldn’t be his to touch at all. Yet, what he’d felt at his fingertips just this morning was definitely a part of him now, and he couldn’t just ignore that and let it go. He needed to know, needed to be certain.

Doing his best to ignore the nauseating feelings, he lets his fingers slide under the elastic, the coarse hair tickling them. The absence of his dick makes him suck in an anxious breath and makes him realise that nothing about this feels sensual or pleasurable, just purely clinical. With shaking fingers, he finds his entrance and pushes them in between the folds. His face twist with disgust at the alien feeling, and when his middle finger crooks into a tight, wet heat he snatches his hand away as if burned by it.

With another shudder he gets to his feet, shaking his hand as if getting rid of the strange sensation on his fingers would help any with the mental bullshit he was dealing with right now.

Returning to his bedroom, he curls back up and hides his new, unfamiliar body underneath a pile of blankets, wishing desperately that when he wakes up tomorrow morning he would be back to himself. This couldn’t possibly be permanent. Just like a cold or a flu it would pass, and he could peg it down to it being a very disturbing, vivid dream.

Snafu finds himself being thankful it was the weekend as no one expected him to be anywhere and no one would come looking for him. By Monday he would be back in work as if nothing fucked up shit had happened during his time off. For now, he opts for staying in bed as if it was just like any other sick day, and tomorrow he’d feel better and back to his normal self. Maybe he’d even go visit the old family home for Sunday dinner so he could gossip with Maman about what the neighbours have been up to and listen to Marie tell him about her schoolwork.

Feeling slightly more optimistic by his plans, he lets himself be swallowed up by his blankets and his bed as he lazes and smokes the day away, doing his best to pretend that it was just any other quiet Saturday. He eventually forces himself into fitful sleep when night finally arrives at a snail’s pace, and before he shuts his eyes to rest, he sends a silent prayer to any deity listening that tomorrow everything would be back to normal. 

Come next morning, Snafu has enough presence of mind to at least press his face into a pillow to muffle the distinctly feminine scream that escapes him as he wakes up once again just completely and utterly… _wrong_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of spying through doors.

It takes Burgie a long time to orient himself through the busy streets of New Orleans. With so many people with such loud thoughts, he has half a mind to turn around and just go back to the quiet of the family farm, finding being so close to so many people all at once entirely overwhelming and distracting. He’s barely able to hear himself think among it all, it makes it hard to pay attention to the directions he should be following. 

But he’s made his decision, he needed to fix this. He couldn’t walk around hearing people’s thoughts all the time, it just wasn’t right to have that kind of insight into other people’s private lives. He already heard some very disturbing thoughts, some downright horrifying and disgusting ones, but he did his best to ignore them as he couldn’t police everyone who had weird urges in their heads as much as he was tempted to.

He is grateful when he finally arrives at Snafu’s address the Corps had given him. He’d requested it along with his other comrades’ addresses only days after he’d returned home, hoping back then to pass out wedding invitations in the near future.

Florence had yet to turn up in Texas though, but Burgie was certain she had her reasons. It was a long and expensive journey after all and moving to another continent out of love alone was a big thing to ask of her. She just needed some time, he was sure of it. Besides, he really wanted to sort out this mind-reading bullshit before he saw her as well. He trusted and loved her completely, but there were certain things he shouldn’t be privy to as a husband. Marriage was built on mutual trust after all, and how could that trust be built between them if he could hear every single thought she had?

Burgie desperately hoped Snafu could be of help, or at least point him in the right direction, otherwise it’d be back to the drawing board and it wasn’t like he had all that many options left after this one.

Entering the apartment building the outside world quiets down a bit, and Burgie sigh with relief as he runs up the stairs to Snafu’s floor and knocks on his door.

A flurry of swearwords in both English and what he thinks is French resonates in Burgie’s ears, sounding distinctly like Snafu’s deep drawl accompanied by the words, ‘ _who the fuck, now, are you serious, I can’t see anyone shit, just be quiet and they’ll go away_ ’

A familiar exasperation that only really made its’ presence known in Snafu’s company welled up within him and makes him knock on the worn-down wooden door a bit harder, “Open up man, it’s Burgie!”

There’s a moment of blessed silence before the swearwords resume in twice the speed as before, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t mildly impressed by the wide variety of colourful language, ‘ _Burgie what the fuck is he doing here, he can’t see me like this, shit what the fuck do I do, maybe he will think I’m not home if I don’t answer the door, I can’t let him see me like this_ ’.

Puzzled by this line of thinking, Burgie bends down to try to peak through the keyhole but is unable to see anything beyond the bare combined living room and kitchen of the small apartment, “Come on Snafu, I know you’re in there! I won’t leave before you open this door!”

‘ _Shit why won’t he fucking leave, he’s drawing so much attention to himself jesus, someone will ask questions, how does he know I’m here anyway, fuck he won’t believe me if I told him, what to do, would he be able to help, it’s not like I have all that many other options, shit just open the fuckin’ door Shelton, he might not even know it’s you and you can just say you aren’t home, that sounds so fucking messed up, just open the door before he kicks it down, can’t believe I’m fucking doing this’._

Burgie can hear the padding of footsteps and leans away from the keyhole, expecting Snafu to open the door like a normal person but instead it’s torn open and Burgie barely has time to register what is happening when an arm snaps out between the gap and hauls him inside as the door slams shut behind him.

He lies dumbfounded on Snafu’s apartment floor for a second, though the instincts developed from war was not allowing him to be idle for long as he jumps to his feet to confront the person who had managed to overthrow him so easily.

There’s a pregnant pause as he stares at the petite girl standing defiantly in front of him clad only in a pair of shorts and an oversized t-shirt. Her large eyes glares at him challengingly as Burgie can hear what is distinctly Snafu’s thoughts, ‘ _fucking say something, shit he doesn’t recognise me this was a bad idea, well if I had opened a door like a normal person it would easier to turn him away, I wanted to see him though I wanted him to recognise me but what did I expect honestly I hardly recognise me’._

Glancing around the otherwise empty room for Snafu, he turns his attention back to her and considers her carefully, and realises with bewilderment that he does recognise her. The unusually big, blue eyes glaring at him, the wild, untamed curls, the defensive hunch of her small shoulders, the slight overbite concealed by a full upper lip worrying the bottom one, the fidgeting of fingers picking at short, ragged nails.

_‘please just stop staring at me and say something’._

“Snaf?” Burgie asks faintly, and the girl’s eyes widen dramatically, and the thoughts echoing in the room sounds a lot like relief mixed with apprehension and bewilderment.

“How did you…?” her tone is distinctly feminine though the slight rasp in her voice and her drawl makes the her pitch a bit lower than most women Burgie knew, _‘how did he know it was me, how-how-how, well I guess the cat’s out of the bag now a bit too late to try and shove it back in there’._

“Shelton, is that really you?” 

“Yeah,” the girl concedes frustrated and bury her hands in the long, dark strands atop of her head in such a Snafu-like gesture that Burgie feels utterly floored, because what the hell? How was this even remotely possible? Burgie had been raised in a good catholic home and he’d never been one to believe in miracles nor magic, but this certainly seemed like that to him. What else could possibly explain that one of his best friends had suddenly switched sexes? There was a slight chance that the mind-reading stuff had just been a fidget of his imagination going completely crazy, but there was no explaining this by any scientific means even though it did solidify the belief in his mind that he might not be going insane after all.

“Are you just going to stand there gaping or are you going to say something?” Snafu asks harshly when Burgie spends too long lost in thought, but Burgie knows the rough tone is just a front. He prided himself in knowing Snafu for long enough to know he never got this defensive unless he was either feeling cornered, scared or uncertain, and right now Burgie understood the sentiment all too well as he was dealing with some pretty inexplicable bullshit of his own. He was scared too. 

“Uh,” Burgie starts intelligently, not quite sure what Snafu expected him to say, because this stuff should be downright impossible. All he could think of to ask was, “What happened?”

The look of complete hopelessness on Snafu’s feminine face make something unpleasant drop in Burgie’s stomach because he had never seen that look on someone who seemed as untouchable as Snafu before, “I don’t know! I just woke up yesterday with a freakin’ vagina down there, I don’t know how or why it happened!” _‘what if I’m stuck, what will happen then, fuck does he even believe me or is he just being his overly nice self and entertaining what he thinks is some crazy bitch, how did he even find me, I didn’t want anyone to see but what if it’s permanent, what then, shitshitshit’_.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, I believe you. We’ll figure it out, just…” Burgie says unsure, the instinct to go console what looks very much like a distressed girl conflicting with the knowledge that it’s Snafu inside that girl’s body who will probably not be very receptible to any sort of comforting.

Approaching him, Burgie puts a reassuring hand on Snafu’s narrow shoulder, though doesn’t get much time to contemplate how big his palm seems resting there before Snafu flinches away from him, looking at him hesitantly, “What are you doing?” _‘why did I react like that, has he always been so much bigger than me, shit, what’s the fucking matter with me, it’s just Burgie for Christ’s sake’_

“Nothing, nothing,” Burgie assures him while doing his best to tune out Snafu’s thoughts from his own head. They are such a flurry of mixed images and perceptions that come in such a rapid succession that he struggles to assimilate a single one of them, but they all carry with them a sense of great distress and anxiety. It’s so in conflict with the cool, calm exterior he usually exudes that Burgie feels that being given this insight into Snafu’s private thoughts isn’t only unfair but also a betrayal of his hard-earned trust. 

Snafu eyes him critically, “What are you doin’ here anyway?” he asks, folding his arms over his chest and Burgie pretends not to notice how the entirety of Snafu’s body goes rigid at the motion.

“Actually,” on the grand scale of things, his problem seemed pretty insignificant to what Snafu was experiencing and right now it seemed as if Snafu had more than enough on his plate with just coping with his own shit, but he was desperate and didn’t know who else to turn to, “I came to ask for your help.”

“Help? With what exactly?” Snafu raises his eyebrows at him incredulously and indicates to himself with an exaggerated dramatic flourish as he says flatly, “Unless you are in desperate need for a new flower girl for your oh-so-much-anticipated weddin’, I don’t think I’m goin’ ta be of much help with anything right now.”

“No, Snafu, for god’s sake I don’t need –,” he says annoyed before deciding that it’d be better just cutting right to the chase than entertain Snafu’s strange sense of humour, “I can hear people’s thoughts. I don’t know how it happened, but I can hear thoughts like some sort of… mind-reading ability shit or somethin’, I don’t know.”

Snafu stares at him blankly, _‘bullshit’._

“I can hear your disbelief and –,”

“Okay, so what am I thinkin’ then, huh?”

“You’re standing there with a sudden sex change with long, curly locks, I don’t think you’re entitled to doubt me,” Burgie says with a frown. It was the exact reaction he’d been prepared for, but now that he knew that something had happened to Snafu too it was a bit hurtful to know he still questioned the truth in his words.

Snafu shrugs noncommittally, obviously trying to gloss over Burgie’s argument as he says, “Just entertain me, yeah?”

“Fine,” Burgie bites, and tried to concentrate but he’s not exactly sure what he is supposed to concentrate on, but he hears Snafu’s thoughts as clear as glass nonetheless, ‘ _have you been able to hear me the whole time, is this how you knew it was me, how you knew I was home, god if this is real you can’t read into my mind and memories too can you, how much have you heard how much do you know, this is bullshit no way can he hear what I’m thinking_ ’.

They stare at each other intently for a moment before the spell is broken by Snafu quirking a dark eyebrow at him, “So? What’s the verdict head doctor?”

“I don’t know where exactly you expect me to begin, because your head’s a mess,” Burgie jokes to lighten the mood a little and it earns him a half-hearted snort from Snafu, but turns more serious as he continues, “But yeah, it is how I knew you were home, ‘cause I was able to hear you through the door, though I didn’t know what had happened before I was able to see you. It did help me recognise you though.”

There’s a tense moment before Snafu slumps down gracelessly onto the couch placed in the middle of the room, burying his face into his hands, “Fuck me, it’s true. This is really happenin’, isn’t it? I’ve been kinda hopin’ it was sort of messed up dream or somethin’ that I’d wake up from.”

“Yeah, sure seems like it,” Burgie agrees and carefully takes a seat next to Snafu, not wanting the startle the other man again. There’s no immediate reaction and Burgie feels a bit reassured that Snafu didn’t withdraw from his closeness this time around. 

A lit cigarette appears in his line of vision and he’s not exactly sure when or how Snafu had procured it without his notice, but he accepts it without a word and takes a long drag of it, letting the nicotine relax his limbs into the couch cushions.

They sit in silence like this for a long while, passing the cigarette back and forth between them as they contemplate their faiths’ respectively when Burgie glances over at Snafu who sits sprawled over the couch with his head tilted back as he attempts to blow smoke rings up at the ceiling.

Burgie takes this moment of inattentiveness to really observe how he appears now. Snafu is definitely changed on a biological level, but all his mannerisms are the same, his attitude and posture, it’s all Snafu. He wonders what it feels like, waking up as a different version of you, to be suddenly so out of your element, so outside of yourself that you don’t recognise your own body.  

Snafu, feeling the eyes on him, turns his head to glare in his direction, “What?” he asks lazily, and Burgie does his best to tune out the insecure commentary echoing from Snafu’s head.

“What’s it like?” he knows it is probably an insensitive way to word his curiosity, but he also knows that Snafu would probably smack him if he tried to sugarcoat the question just because he outwardly looked like a woman.

Catching onto his meaning immediately, Snafu chews on the butt of the cigarette as Burgie hears him considering how honest he should be about his answer before realising there really was no point in trying to brush it off and make some offhand comment about it. There’s a brief pause while he seriously contemplates his answer before he exhales a large cloud of smoke with a sigh, “Weird. Fucked up. I feel… wrong. On so many levels. Like, ya’d think bein’ a broad would be fun with all the perks, but shit lookin’ down and not seein’ mahself even tho’ I know it’s supposed to be me, it is messin’ with mah head. Like, I tried to, ya know,” Snafu makes a clicking-noise in the corner of his mouth as he makes an obscene hand-motion, “but I just couldn’t do it. It just felt… wrong. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

Through the course of his talk Snafu has curled more and more in on himself, now sitting upright on the couch as he hugs his bare knees tightly to his chest, and once again Burgie feels conflicting instincts of what he should do. This time though he gently leans against Snafu so they’re sitting shoulder to narrow shoulder, mindful of any sign that the other man will pull away. When he doesn’t, Burgie feels a bit more confident when he says, “I ain’t going to pretend I get it, but… we’ll find a solution to this. I promise.”

 _‘don’t make promises you can’t keep’_ echoes from Snafu’s mind before Burgie feels Snafu’s solid presence lean back into him, accompanied by a whispered ‘ _thank you’_ , that is more of a bunch of mixed emotions and concepts that Burgie struggles to understand instead of the usual spoken input he seems to be perceiving.

The physical contact reminds him a lot of when they’d been huddled under a tarp with Jay to hide from the thunderous rain during their first days they’d been stationed at Cape Gloucester, all too wired and afraid to sleep.

“So, what’s it like, hearin’ what everyone’s thinkin’?” Burgie could still sense some of Snafu’s scepticism but he could understand that, it wasn’t like his newfound ability was as obvious or tangible as Snafu’s. 

“Morally deplorable. I think you’d enjoy it,” he says drily, and Snafu’s shoulder jostle his as he huffs a laugh, his now long curls tickling Burgie’s chin in the process, “But I only hear like… surface thoughts. So, I don’t think it actually qualifies as mind-reading, more like mind-listening? If that’s even a thing. But it’s like I’m getting’ some sort of unfair insight I shouldn’t have. I can control it somewhat though, tune the voices out so it it’s not entirely overwhelming.”

Snafu nods thoughtfully, “And ya don’t know how this came about either, yeah? Seems a bit too coincidental that both ‘a us are experiencing this shit at the same time.”

Frowning, Burgie realises that he had a point. Both of the stuff they were dealing with should be impossible in the first place and the fact that they were experiencing it at within the span of almost the same week couldn’t be just by chance.

“You’re right,” he says, and turns to Snafu, “What have you done since you got back that’s been different? Anythin’ out of the ordinary?”

Snafu blinks back at him with large eyes, then shrugs, “Unless you count fuckin’ a married woman, not much. Drinking and working, nothing new.”

It was strange hearing such a blunt and crude statement coming from someone looking like Snafu was at the moment, his current smaller and decidedly more feminine stature giving of an expectation of innocence and modesty, and Burgie makes a significant effort not to comment on it, knowing that Snafu in his current emotional state will not take kindly to it. The fact that Snafu had slept with a married woman came as a bit of surprise as well. He knew the man had a track record of actions in the morally grey area, but Burgie had never pegged him for someone ignoring the sanctity of marriage. Then again, he didn’t know the full story and knowing Snafu there probably was more to it, but he wasn’t exactly the type that’d share more than he had to. Besides, it wasn’t his place to reprimand Snafu for his questionable actions.

Burgie refrains from commenting as if a million questions weren’t on the tip of his tongue, “Yeah, I’ve not done anythin’ different either, so it must have been somethin’ else, maybe… hey, ‘ya remember that last night in Peking?”

There’s a conceding hum from Snafu as he lights another cigarette, “Ya mean when our drunk asses were almost crushed by blocks of ice fallin’ from the sky while lightnin’ lit up the sky in a poor imitation of a Jap shellin’? Vaguely.” _‘the air was so freaking electric that it made my hair stand on edge, we might have been trashed but getting struck by lightning isn’t exactly something you forget, wait the lightning, we were fucking struck by lightning’._

Burgie snatches the smoke from between his fingers and takes a long drag, making Snafu scowl in his direction, “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

“I can already tell that is goin’ ta be annoyin’,” Snafu says and steals back the smoke from Burgie, and takes a long drag, “But yeah, so you’re thinkin’ that it was that storm?” _‘that’s crazy, bad weather don’t cause this kind of shit, this is fucking impossible’._

“I know it sounds stupid, but it’s the only reason I can think of that’d explain why we’re both suddenly like this,” Burgie says with a shrug.

They consider this new information before Snafu’s eyes widen dramatically and he turns around to face Burgie directly, “But then, if that’s true…” _‘Eugene’._

…

It’s well into the evening when there’s a polite knock on the door, and Eugene glances up from his book to share a curious look with his parents. They weren’t expecting anyone, and neither was Eugene. It was unlikely to be Sid as Eugene had seen him just earlier that day to help with his and Mary’s wedding, and Sid was frankly the only one Eugene could imagine turning up unannounced like this at this time of night. Maybe it was Edward, but he was so busy with his own family nowadays, and he wouldn’t have bothered to knock. The weather had also taken a turn for the worse during the day and it was now pouring down heavily outside, so he didn’t understand who’d have dared venture outside in that awful rain.   

“Who could that be at this ungodly hour and in this weather,” his mother huffs disapprovingly and sets her teacup and saucer down with a clink, “Tee, could you get the door please?”  

Their butler gives a curt nod and disappears from the lounge only to appear moments later, “Mr. Eugene, there’s a young couple outside requesting your presence.”

“Uh,” Eugene feels possibly even more confused at this, because he didn’t really know any young couples with the exception of Sid and Mary, but Sid had practically grown up with Tee’s presence around as much as Eugene had so Tee would have known if it was him, “Did they say who they were?”

“No, sir.”

Getting up from his chair, he gestures reassuringly towards his mother who are fidgeting with the hem of her dress nervously and heads to the foyer, a slight hesitance in his step as he approaches the front door. It was ridiculous that he was nervous really with him being a veteran of two major battles, but there was a strange feeling in his gut that something was about to unravel, and he wasn’t quite sure if he was ready for it.

Just as he grabs the handle to push open the door he hears muffled voices through the wood and without a second thought puts his ear against it to listen.

A low female voice is speaking, though her drawling tone isn’t one he recognises, “Shit, this was a bad idea. I can’t let him see me like this.” 

“Why not? You let me see you,” Was that…Burgie? What was he doing here? 

“Yeah, but you were makin’ a scene and moments away from kickin’ mah door in, so you didn’t give me much of a choice.”

“I was not, I was only – hush, I think he’s listenin’.”

The world outside falls silent and Eugene wonders how Burgie had been able to know he was there, but there was no point in standing around and speculate how the sergeant had suddenly developed superhuman hearing so he pushes open the door to the sight of the two soaking wet figures standing on the Sledge’s porch on the other side.  

“Burgie,” he laughs breathlessly at the sight of his old comrade and shakes his hand, feeling an overwhelming happiness at the sight of him despite only seeing him last three weeks ago. When they’d spent every day together for months and months on end however, three weeks seemed like an eternity. He’d be honest and admit that if there was going to be any of his old comrades turning randomly up at his door at night it definitely hadn’t been Burgie he’d expected, and though it is a nice surprise, he had kind of been hoping that it’d be a certain Cajun coming to see him. 

Burgie’s face tighten inexplicably, but his tone and smile are friendly as he says, “Sledge, how’ ya been? It’s good to see you.”

“Things have been fine. Peaceful.” Eugene answers the sergeant pleasantly before his attention turns to the girl partially obscured by Burgie’s larger frame. She’s staring at him with wide, unblinking eyes, “And who is this?”

Was it Florence? Eugene didn’t know why he’d always imagined her looking different, though he could appreciate that she was definitely beautiful with her dark curls and big, blue eyes, even though her clothing was a bit unconventional for a young woman. Worn jeans ripped at one knee and a flannel that seemed to be three sizes too big on her, both her pants and the sleeves of her shirt having been rolled up to accommodate her small stature. That wasn’t what bothered Eugene though. There was something about her irking him, a feeling of having met her before. He knew that was impossible but the almost familiar intensity in her animated eyes sends an unusual shiver down his spine. 

“It’s a bit of a long story actually,” Burgie says as he glances over at the girl who has yet to break eye contact Eugene, “Maybe we could talk somewhere a bit more private? And preferably drier.”

Eugene blinks and takes in both their sodden outfits, water dripping from the cuffs of their clothes and hair, “Yes, of course. Sorry, I’m forgettin’ my manners, come in.”

Burgie enters gratefully, though the girl hesitates in the doorway as she’s looking around the foyer with something akin to hesitation and intimidation on her face, “Ya know, maybe I shouldn’t –,”

“Oh dear, you’re soaked through! Come on in sweetheart, you must be freezing. Tee, please get some towels for our guests.”

Eugene hadn’t heard his mother and their butler enter the foyer, but she must have been listening for a while to know that they were acquaintances of his to show this level of hospitality. He was a bit annoyed that she’d come to check up on him, obviously having pre-emptively worried about him just like she’d done since the moment he had gotten back home weeks ago. As much as he appreciated her care, her constant concern was beginning to wear down on him.  

“Mother,” Eugene does his best to hide the irritation in his voice, “This is Sergeant Romus Burgin, who I served with, and…” He realized that he hadn’t actually been formally introduced to the girl who had yet to pass the house’s threshold, though he was pretty certain it was Florence because what other girl could it possibly that’d turn up at his house with Burgie like this?

“Yes?” His mother inquires when he takes too long answering but he isn’t quite sure what he should tell her. He glances over at the two visitors who were sharing the most meaningful look, as if they were having a silent conversation between themselves.

“This is, uh,” Burgie starts and glances over at the girl hesitantly who raises her eyebrows inquisitively, seeming just as curious about the answer as his mother and Eugene herself. Burgie clear his throat uncomfortably, “I want to introduce… my fiancé, Florence.”

The girl, Florence, send Burgie a look that screams nothing but murder and Eugene is taken aback by how easily Burgie seems to brush the heated glare off which Eugene is pretty sure would have sent most men running screaming in the opposite direction.

His mother seems oblivious to the whole interaction, smiling brightly at the couple, “Oh, how wonderful, it’s always so nice to see young love. Thank you, Tee.”

Tee had returned with a couple of towels for Burgie and Florence, the former easily thanking the man and wrapping himself up while the latter accepted the towel hesitantly from the butler with a whispered thanks, seeming unsure what to do with herself as she clutched the soft material between her cold, shivering hands without using it to mop up the water running down her face and long curls.

There was something odd about her behaviour, her whole demeanour, that tickled something in Eugene’s brain, though he couldn’t exactly pinpoint what it was. It was the same feeling of familiarity he’d felt moments before, and it made suspicion form in his mind as he continued studying this girl standing firmly in the doorway.

Florence catches him staring, her eyes snapping up to his with that same fierce intensity, and another shudder runs down his spine as he’s brought back to the present, just catching onto the tail of a conversation between Burgie and his mother,

“– and there were some problems with the train. We had planned to arrive earlier and surprise Eugene at a more appropriate time, but circumstances just wouldn’t allow it unfortunately.”

Though he’d always been respectful to everyone he’d talked to, it was uncommon and strange to hear Burgie speak so formally. Eugene was guessing he was trying to win his mother over and was succeeding very well by the charmed expression on his mother’s face. But there was something about the whole scenario with Burgie and Florence turning up out of the blue that bothered him and the suspicion in his mind continued to grow.

“I’m sure we have an extra set of clothes for you both to wear somewhere. I hardly think those backpacks are going to have kept your clothes safe from this horrid weather,” his mother says pleasantly, glancing over their dripping clothes, her eyes stopping at Florence’s attire, “and maybe find something more feminine for you dear, it’s hardly appropriate for a young lady to walk around in men’s clothes after all.”

Florence’s shoulders hunch, and she stares down at her hands that are clenched around the towel in a tight grip, her fingers white from tension, “No, that’s okay, I’d prefer –,”

“Nonsense, I’m sure we have something for you to wear. I think one of the servant girls are about your size. It might not be an exact fit nor up to your usual standard, but we can find you something more fitting tomorrow afternoon if need be.”

“Really,” Florence tries to argue, her voice laced with mild frustration underneath the forced polite tone as she says, “I’m good.”

“I insist,” his mother presses pleasantly, oblivious to the girl’s own wishes and was probably thinking that she was just being modest, but Eugene could see how her whole body was wound tight with discomfort from just being there and the suggestion to remove the men’s clothing just seemed to emphasize the effect. 

For a moment it looked like Florence was prepared to start an argument over the matter, her mouth turned down in a scowl but then her shoulders slumped in defeat as she muttered, “Thanks,” she glances in Eugene’s direction, “Ma’m.”

The large grandfather clock sitting in the dining room strikes ten o’clock, the chimes echoing into the foyer and make both Burgie and Florence jump in surprise. They both appeared very much on edge, though Eugene couldn’t for the life of him understand why. His mother was a handful yes, but they weren’t exactly in the Pacific anymore either. 

“Look at the time, it’s getting quite late,” his mother claps her hands together and looks at the couple expectantly, “I’ll make the servants prepare a room for you and put out some dry change of clothes and nightwear. Eugene, sweetheart, would you mind showing them where they’ll be staying?” 

Eugene wanted to protest. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them, but something strange was definitely going on here. He glances over at Burgie who is frowning thoughtfully at him. Their eyes meet, and Eugene has this overwhelming feeling of Burgie seeing into his very soul. The man had always been insightful and perceptive, it was what had made him great sergeant, but never before had Eugene felt like the man was practically reading his mind.

“Mrs. Sledge,” Burgie says and turns his attention away from Eugene who breathes a sigh in relief, “Florence and I can find somewhere to stay in town. We don’t wish to bother you unnecessarily, we were just hoping to have a brief chat with Eugene before retiring for the night.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s really no bother,” his mother brushes him off with a smile, and puts a hand on Eugene’s shoulder, “Friends of Eugene are always welcome in our home. It’s been so quiet around here lately, we’d appreciate the company.”

Eugene really does appreciate that his mother is thinking of him and are so welcoming of his friends, but he really wished that he had a say in this at all. He was a grown man, not some child that needed his mother to make these decisions for him. Besides, it didn’t exactly seem like Burgie and Florence had planned on sticking around by the way they were looking at each other sceptically.

None of them have much choice however and they all quietly resign themselves to their faiths as Eugene’s mother urges them all upstairs. They trail along the corridor in relative silence, Eugene at the front while Burgie and Florence follow behind. He can hear the occasional whispered conversation between them, but as curious as he is, he knows it would be very rude and too obvious if he tried to listen in on what they were talking about.

“This is the guest room,” Eugene says and pushes open the door to the spare bedroom for them. Tee and the servants had been efficient, the room already being prepared with clean sheets and a set of clothes for the couple when they enter. Like before, Burgie enters without hesitation, but Florence stops in the doorway and turns to face him.

“Gene,” Florence says, and Eugene is slightly thrown by the shortened version of his name which only a very few people used for him. She tugs at a lock of hair as she worries her lower lip, but before she seems able to build up the courage to say what’s on her mind she sighs resignedly, “Ya know what, never mind.”

Eugene looks up to catch Burgie staring at them, a guarded look in his eyes that isn’t unfamiliar but has never been directed in Eugene’s direction in that manner before.

Clearing his throat, feeling suddenly uncomfortable in the couple’s presence, Eugene says the first thing that comes to mind, “Let me dispose of these towels, I’ll be back in a bit.”

Florence hadn’t really used hers at all, but he collects it along with Burgie’s anyway before shutting the door behind him while heaving a sigh, the wet towels dampening the sleeves of his pressed shirt. He really should go dispose of them at the laundry room downstairs, but his mind is whirling with suspicion and confusion, because there was just something about this that felt askew yet awfully familiar.

“Why did you have’ta tell him I was you’ fuckin’ fiancé, huh? Why not just say I’m you’ cousin or some shit like tha’?” Florence’s husky drawl carries through the thick wooden door and makes Eugene snap out of his thoughts with a puzzled frown, and he once again presses an ear against the door to listen, hoping that Burgie won’t bust him this time around.

“That would not’ve made any sense, why would I suddenly turn up here with my cousin? This was the most believable lie, it’s what Sledge was thinking,” Burgie answers reasonably, though Eugene doesn’t really understand how he sounds so reasonable about it as he basically just admitted that he’d lied to Eugene’s face about this girl’s identity. 

“Us turning up here so late at night doesn’t make sense in the first place,” The girl’s huffed retort is so quick that Eugene thinks that they must know each other well, because hardly no one ever dared to argue with Burgie’s calm, unshakable logic.

There’s a moment of silence and Eugene holds his breath, begging to whatever deity listening that Burgie’s apparent newly developed super-hearing wouldn’t be able to hear him through the thick oak door. There was some shuffling and Eugene could hear solid steps headed towards the door on the other side, and Eugene thought he was about to be caught spying again when the girl’s frustrated growl sounds through the door.

 “Why does this stink of floral? Why does everything smell like fuckin’ floral and soap in this house,” The girl’s voice says with some disgust, and the footsteps stop in their tracks, making Eugene sigh with relief. There’s a muted thump as something is dumped gracelessly on the floor, “I’m not fuckin’ wearin’ that. No fuckin’ way am I puttin’ on a fuckin’ skirt, Burgie.”

“Snaf, calm down, we’ll figure this out. Hopefully the rain has passed by morning and we can leave if it turns out Sledge doesn’t know anything and is unable to help us.”

What the hell? Snafu? What did he have to do with this? And help with what exactly? What did they want from Eugene?  

“If it wasn’t for this fuckin’ weather I would have never even entered this house in the first place,” the girl’s tone loses the easy drawl and sounds almost hopeless when she speaks so quietly that Eugene struggles to hear the rest of what she’s saying, “He doesn’t recognise me, Burgie, there was nothin’. Not even a fuckin’ bat of an eye. I just want to leave but this fuckin’ rain, man.”

“Yeah, I know,” Burgie murmurs just as quietly.

The room falls back into silence, and Eugene, sensing that their strange conversation that only provided more questions than answers is finally over, gets to his feet to go dump the towels that have by now soaked through his sleeves completely in the laundry basket when the guest bedroom’s door swings open to reveal Burgie standing there.

“Sledge, maybe you should come inside. We need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit's 'bout to go down and there'll be some more action (but not less talking) in the next chapter ('cause for once I'm actually planning the plot of my fics).  
> Hope you guys enjoyed the little Burgie and Snafu bonding sesh (I love writing them), will be more Snafu/Sledge interactions soon!


	3. Chapter 3

“You knew he was there the whole time, didn’tcha,” the girl says accusingly at Burgie as Eugene hears the door click shut behind him.

“Not the whole time,” Burgie says, “Only while you were making a scene.”

“I was not, I was just –,” the girl glances over at Eugene who is standing in the middle of the room feeling very much confused about this whole situation before her eyes narrow back onto Burgie, “You wanted him ta hear us talkin’.”

Burgie just shrugs innocently which does nothing to quell Eugene’s feeling of unease and bewilderment. He really didn’t know what was happening or why Burgie and this girl were acting so strange, but he could only assume that it meant nothing good. God, he hoped he was wrong about it.

“Alright, what’s going on here?” Eugene finally asks when none of them seem like they are about to elaborate. He has so many questions but there was one that was burning at the forefront of his mind and made his teeth clench together angrily. They’d lied to him. The fact that Burgie was usually such a genuine and honest man only made the matter worse, and he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this kind of treatment from his old squad leader and a stranger.

Fuelled a sense of betrayal he was feeling bolder than he usually was as he turned to look Burgie directly in the eye, “I heard everything you guys said. I know you lied. This isn’t Florence, so who exactly is it?” he gestured behind himself in the direction of the girl, too emotionally upset to care whether or not he was being rude. “And no lies this time,” he bites just when Burgie is about to open his mouth.

“Wasn’t plannin’ to,” Burgie says placatingly before turning his attention to the girl who had seated herself on the queen-sized bed pushed up against the wall. She was leaning back on her elbows leisurely and her legs were spread in the most unladylike posture. “Do you want to tell him or should I?”

The girl shrugs noncommittally as she huffs, “What’s the point? He ain’t goin’ ta believe us anyway.”

“Will you both just stop this idiotic secrecy and tell me who this is? Is that too much to ask when you show up here unannounced and lie straight to my fuckin’ face?” Eugene exclaims, feeling the fiery emotions break through the fog of detachment that had seemed to surround him ever since he stepped of that train weeks ago.

“C’mon now Sledgehamma’, what would your mama say if she heard ya speak like that, huh?”

Eugene’s entire body seem to freeze on the spot as he hears her lazy drawl so casually say his nickname like it was second nature. There was only one other person on the entire earth who said it that way, but that couldn’t be possible.

He sees an infuriatingly familiar smirk spread over her face as her half-lidded eyes glint with something akin to realisation as she returns his incredulous stare, “What’s wrong boo, cat got you’ tongue?”

Burgie gives the girl some sort of warning but Eugene doesn’t hear it. His ears feel like they’re filled with cotton and every sound around him have become faint and muted. He isn’t able to form any sort of coherent response either because how the fuck could he, there simply was no way this could be true, but something about her had been bothering her ever since he laid eyes on her, a sense of knowing and affinity. It was like a last puzzle-piece he knew should fit with the rest of the image, but he just didn’t seem able to place it anywhere. But suspicion was taking solid shape in his mind, despite him telling himself that it was utterly ridiculous. There was no way this was remotely possible. This couldn’t possibly be his Snafu.

In desperation he glances over at Burgie for answers, but he is only impartially assessing the situation, just as unhelpful as before.

The girl pushes herself off the bed and slides right up to Eugene, her fingers that barely graces the crook of his elbow to get his attention feels like hot iron on his skin, “Come on, look at mah eyes,” and Eugene, without thinking of the implications, does, and sees that incredibly deep blue hue only belonging to one particular man. She’s so very close and Eugene can feel her warm breath on his skin as she says lowly into his ear, “I’m dyin’, Sledge.”

Eugene jolts back to look at her, to properly look, and his mind is desperately trying to reconcile this petite girl with his old foxhole partner. And when he started to look for the signs, he couldn’t seem to stop, and if this wasn’t so utterly impossible he’d wonder how he’d not seen it before.  

“I think you’ve made your point,” Burgie interrupts and the girl – Snafu? backs away, her – his? entire demeanour reverting back to a more cautious one, which was strange as Eugene had only seen Snafu like that a handful of times. Once being that time Deacon had died and Snafu had seemed so out of his comfort zone with handling any emotions that wasn’t anger or mocking carelessness. But no, this was scientifically impossible. Snafu, the cocky asshole couldn’t possibly be standing here in his guest bedroom looking very much like one of those women in men’s clothing who are marching off to overthrow a patriarchal government and its oppressors. He couldn’t possibly accept this. No one in their right mind would believe this. His head hurt.

“This is impossible,” Eugene whispers, shaking his head in denial, “You’re lying.”

“This ain’t exactly something I’d lie ‘bout,” the girl argues with some frustration, “I’m tellin’ you, Eugene, it’s me. It’s Shelton.”

“Did you put her up to this?” Eugene turns to Burgie and pretends to not notice the well-concealed look of hurt on the man’s face on the accusation. As much as he felt bad about it, he didn’t feel like his suspicion was totally unwarranted after tonight.

“No. _He_ is telling the truth, Sledge. This is Snafu. And I know you feel like I betrayed your trust, but I lied to you because it was necessary. I wouldn’t have done it if people hadn’t been listenin’ in on our conversation,” Burgie’s gaze is steady as he says this, his tone impossibly sincere, “I’m sorry, but please, just hear us out.”

“Fine,” Eugene concedes after a brief pause. He doubts he will believe whatever insane explanation they were about to tell him, but he has enough respect for Burgie to at least listen to what they were doing there.

And insane it was. They wasted no time in beating around the bush, launching straight into a story starting from their last night in Peking with that unnatural, violent storm to when they’d stepped onto his porch in the pouring rain. There were times they would pause during their explanation, especially the girl, as if there were some details she was withholding from the story, and Eugene couldn’t help but wonder what was so shocking that she didn’t feel like she could include it in her and Burgie’s already impossibly absurd tale.

“.. and so it seems like the storm in Peking made this fucked up shit happen to us, and now Burgie can hear thoughts like some fuckin’ Houdini bullshit, while I’m stuck like… this,” the girl gestures to herself, disgust twisting her pretty features into something Eugene could almost recognise from months and months spent with a particular Cajun boy in a warzone filled with the stench of rotting corpses, but he doesn’t want to, isn’t capable of accepting the uncanny likeness between them.

Eugene’s head was spinning with information, not quite sure what to believe. A large part of him wanted to think what they were telling him was true, but an even larger part was arguing about the impossibility of it. This was going against everything he knew about the course of nature and evolution, about what he knew about God, and he was finding it preposterous to disregard all that knowledge of science and religion in order to embrace this absurdity.

“Gene?”

“This is crazy,” he says faintly from his spot on the bed where he’d had to take a seat to collect himself halfway through their extraordinary and unbelievable account, “How can you expect me to believe any of this?”

“I know it’s difficult to understand, but –”

“I need some time to think,” Eugene cuts Burgie off and pushes himself off the bed, propelling himself past them both and towards the door, “We can talk again in the morning.”

He barely registers the disappointment on the girl’s face as he rushes out of the rom to hide in his own, shedding his clothes in a mess on the floor as he curls up beneath his duvet, and buries his face in his pillow as he tries to sort through this information rationally, even though there was no rational way to do it. Because what if it was true? As impossible as the whole thing seemed Eugene desperately wanted to believe them, wanted to believe what his friends was telling him if they indeed actually his friends.

But that also meant that he was accepting that the petite girl accompanying Burgie was Snafu. Snafu who was tough as nails and could be just as mean. Snafu who prided himself on intimidating and harden new replacements for war with a razor-sharp smile and deadpan accounts of the horrors on the frontlines. Snafu who believed in tough love and pushed away anyone who couldn’t handle his brutal honesty. Snafu who also had a softer side only a very few people were privy to. Snafu who was so much more to Eugene than just a friend and foxhole partner. And now Eugene was supposed to accept that the very same man had been transformed into this girl, who would be socially acceptable to be with, but not someone Eugene was confident he could care for in the same way he cared for Snafu with all his rough edges and sharp angles.  

Eugene feel his whole body tense and cold sweat start to form at the back of his neck as he realizes that if they are really telling him the truth then Burgie would know.  He would have known everything within the span of two minutes with Eugene, maybe even from the moment he’d opened that door for them. He’d kept his secrets so close to his chest, had been so careful not to show his misplaced feelings for men that he should have been feeling for women. Burgie would know how unnatural, twisted and sinful his thoughts were, and it left a gaping pit of fear settle in Eugene’s stomach.

There was a possibility Burgie didn’t know even if he was able to hear Eugene’s thoughts. That Eugene hadn’t thought too hard of Snafu when he’d opened that door or the hour that had followed, but Eugene knew that he’d be fooling himself he tried to tell himself any of that was remotely true. Snafu occupied his mind more days than not ever since he’d woken up on the train to a cold, empty seat where the Cajun should have been sitting, and he knew that seeing Burgie in his doorway and the accompanying sense of disappointment that it hadn’t been Snafu had only amplified the memories haunting him.  

Burgie hadn’t said a word though, not mentioned it once, and so maybe what Burgie was telling him wasn’t true but not entirely an intentional lie either. Maybe he honestly believed that he’d developed mind-reading powers, when in reality he was just experiencing shellshock in the form of delusion or hallucinations. His father had told him that some veterans couldn’t handle the transition back to civilian life, and maybe this was what had happened to Burgie.

That didn’t explain the girl though, and Eugene had no clue as to how to logically explain that one. She’d known about that day in the tent. The day when Snafu had tried to take Eugene’s mind off Ack-Ack’s death in his own frustrating but considerate way, barely touching Eugene as he invaded his personal space with his lithe, wiry body, his breath that stank of cigarette smoke warming Eugene’s face with every exhale as he told him, “I’m dyin’, Sledge.”. No one knew about any of those details. No one but Eugene and Snafu themselves. 

Eugene didn’t know how long he lay in his bed pondering over these turn of events, wondering how he could possibly allow himself to accept what they’d told him without questioning everything he’d been taught to believe during his life. All he knew is that the next time he blinks the sun is out and the birds are singing, but he didn’t feel like he’d caught a wink of sleep that night even though the shift from night to day was telling him differently. He was sleeping poorly nowadays anyway, nightmares constantly plaguing him when he actually did manage to catch some shuteye, so maybe he should be grateful that there’d been a night without them no matter how terrible he was feeling now.

He felt no closer to finding a satisfying resolution to his problem, but he’d promised he would talk to them again today and he hoped they could offer a more understandable explanation that Eugene would manage to wrap his head around. If not, he wasn’t sure if he could accept having them around for much longer, because this was greatly wearing down on him mentally.   

He takes his sweet time picking out an outfit and getting dressed, making sure every little detail on him is impeccable before meeting up with his old comrades, knowing fully well he’s just stalling for time. There really wasn’t any point in primping himself to these people who’d seen him at his absolute worst, drenched in mud and weeks-old sweat that would take several showers to get out of his skin. In fact, if the girl really was Snafu, he would probably tease him for being so proper and ask if he’d done himself up so pretty just for him. Which Eugene definitely hadn’t done, but it had cross his mind briefly as he straightened the collar of his white shirt, whether Snafu would make a comment with that careful smile playing on his lips when he saw Eugene for the first time in full daylight without dirt and dried blood behind his ears.

That was when he’d caught himself actually thinking of this girl as Snafu without proper evidence to back it up, and he scolded himself for being so easily persuaded and naïve. Only a child would so readily accept such an impossible story, even as much as he wanted to do so himself.

When he realizes that he’d been stalling for long enough he exits into the blessedly empty corridor, wondering if it’d be best to talk to his guests now or wait until after breakfast when they were all a bit more tolerable after their morning coffee. Eugene didn’t really think a cup of coffee would have him more easily convinced but if he stalled some more then maybe he would know what to say to them.

“Mr. Eugene,” one of the servants calls from the top of the stairs at the end of the corridor, effectively snapping Eugene out of his musings, “There’s a phone call for you.”

What now? If this was Sid calling again to ask whether Eugene was certain he didn’t want to wear dress blues for the wedding reception, Eugene would just have to promise to think about it if it meant they could leave the discussion for another time when he wasn’t dealing with supposedly supernatural friends.

He passes the servant with a thank you in her directions as he runs downstairs and picks up the receiver, fully expecting Sid’s voice to echo back at him, “Yes?”.

“Sledge?” a tinny voice contorted by the phone line that Eugene doesn’t recognise asks at the other end, “Eugene, are you there?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Oh, thank god. It’s Jay. Jay De L’eau.”

Taken aback, Eugene stares down at the receiver in his hand with some confusion. What was Jay doing calling him? And now of all times? He’d not heard from Jay in months, not since he’d been transferred to intelligence right before they were to be shipped out to Okinawa.

It’s only when Jay calls his name that he is able to snap out his surprised stupor, and Eugene does his best to be nonchalant as he says, “Oh, hi Jay. How’ve ya been?”

“Fine. I’ve been fine.” Jay answers politely if not a bit rushed, “You?”

“Things have been good, yeah. Grateful to be back home.”

“Good. That’s… good.”

Jay sounds distracted, and Eugene feels that uneasiness from last night bubble back to the surface, “What’s on your mind, Jay?”

He doesn’t bother with the small-talk this time, already feeling nervous from this call out of the blue in the wake of last night. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Jay was calling him only hours after Burgie and supposedly Snafu showed up on his doorstep claiming they suddenly had strange powers due to some crazy storm.

“Uhm,” Jay hesitates, his voice breaking on the vowel, “Say, Sledge. Your old man’s a doctor, yeah? Has he ever told you about uh, people vanishing or disappearing? Like not in a kidnapping sense, but that they simply become… invisible? I’m asking for a… uh, friend, yeah.”

There’s a long silence, the only sound between them being the crackling of terrible reception. Much like last night, Eugene doesn’t know what to say, though he finds that his denial and disbelief starts to ease a little as he thinks about how this is another one of his friends that has come to him with something strange happening to him. It can’t possibly be a coincidence that they are all claiming to be sharing similar problems.

“How long has this been going on for?” Eugene finds himself asking, remembering that Burgie him that it had started within the last week or two or so for him, “Have you talked to Burgin or Shelton?”

“It started a bit over a week ago,” Jay says, then is quiet for a second, “and they’re both AWOL. I tried get in touch with them, but Burgie’s mom said he disappeared yesterday with only a note on the kitchen counter that said he would be gone for a few days, and I’ve only got Snafu’s home address as his family doesn’t own a phone. Why do you ask?”

Eugene hesitates, knowing fully well that it wasn’t his place to share his friends’ secret, even if it was just Jay.

“It’s nothing, just wondered if you’d heard from them ‘is all,” Eugene settles for, hoping it’s enough to dissuade Jay from any further questioning, “But my father has never mentioned it, but I’ll ask him about it when I see him, alright?”

Jay thanks him and gives Eugene his contact details with the promise from Eugene that he’d call him back as soon as he had the chance to talk to his father about it. Jay was doing a good job of hiding the quiver in his voice as he recited his family’s phone number while Eugene is taking notes, and Eugene feels guilty that he can’t help Jay any more than he is.

“It’s good hearing from you, Jay,”

“You too, Sledge. Thanks again.”

“No worries, talk soon.”

“Bye.”

Eugene puts the receiver back onto the dial and stares at it thoughtfully before turning on his heel, hoping that Burgie and the gi – Snafu, he told himself forcefully, practising the name in his mind as he searches for them in the house. He might not be fully convinced yet, but it was too coincidental that Jay claimed to have a similar problem without being in contact with them, and so Eugene chose to give them all the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. Besides, if it really was Snafu the whole thing must be pretty traumatic for him and Eugene wouldn’t want to hurt him further by continuing to doubt his identity. 

When he hears pleasant chatter coming from the lounge, he finds Burgie sitting there with Eugene’s parents, both of whom are practically beaming at him as they interrogate him about the wedding.

Eugene can tell Burgie is doing his best to be polite and answer all of their questions, but he is able to sense his unease beneath the well-crafted, cordial persona. Eugene wasn’t exactly sure where the actual Florence was at the moment but judging from how his parents’ line of questioning was putting the unshakable Burgie on edge he could make a pretty confident guess as to where she wasn’t.

“Eugene, how nice of you to finally join us,” his mother says mildly, and everyone turns to look at him standing uncertainly in the doorway.

“Good morning, Mother, Father,” he says with a nod in their direction, feeling suddenly self-conscious with all their attention, “Burgie have you seen, uh– do you know where Florence is? I need to speak with her.”

Burgie considers him carefully for a moment, and Eugene does his best to ignore the contradictory protective glint in his eye to his easy-going answer, “Went out the back. Said somethin’ about catchin’ some fresh air.”

Eugene mutters his thanks as he leaves them, knowing exactly what it means when Snafu requires fresh air, so it’s no surprise when Snafu is nowhere to be found around the outside of the house. Snafu could be an inconsiderate son of a gun, but Eugene had a feeling he didn’t dare cloud the entire outside of their white house in smoke, so Eugene wanders in the direction of the forest behind the house, having a feeling Snafu would be drawn to the hiding places the dense trees and grass provided.

Surely enough, he finds him by the small creak, laying on his back in the high grass with his eyes closed and arms folded behind his head, his bare feet dangling out from the riverbank and soaking up the clear, cold spring water. A lit cigarette was dangling from his lips and he was humming quietly to himself, and if it hadn’t been for his smaller stature, the slightly unusual rise of his chest and longer hair, Eugene would have thought there was nothing wrong with this image in front of him. The person laying on the ground was so undeniably his Snafu and Eugene didn’t understand how he’d not seen it properly before now.

He was still struggling to wrap his mind around how this was possible but questioning it any further would be like looking a gift horse in the mouth when Snafu was so close, no matter how he appeared.

With an overwhelming sense of uncertainty accompanied by a healthy dose of apprehension and doubt, he walks over to the creek and carefully takes a seat next to what appeared to the naked eye as a young woman with no regard or care for gender roles and social convention.

“Snafu?” Eugene hates how the name comes out as a question rather than the statement he wanted it to be, hates how his voice wobbles slightly as he says Shelton’s nickname out loud for the first time in weeks as if he’s no longer sure it belongs in his vocabulary.

Snafu blinks open his eyes calmly as he turns his head to stare at Eugene with that assessing thousand-yard stare he’d so often adopted during the war but now seemed a bit out of place on his feminine face.

“Sledgehamma’,” Snafu greets as a lazy smirk spreads over his face though is nowhere close reaching his emotionless eyes, “What brings ya ‘ere? Finally got you’ head outta you’ ass?”

“Somethin’ like that,” Eugene mutters quietly as he stares down at his fidgeting hands self-consciously, wishing he’d brought his pipe to keep himself occupied for the impending conversation. His pipe was back at the house though, and he hadn’t touched it in weeks, so that meant it was only Eugene and his nerves. Sighing to himself, he decides to just bite the bullet, open the conversation like the fresh wound it was, “Can we talk?”

“We’ already talkin’, ain’t we,” Snafu answers flatly and returns to his original position, and Eugene finds himself at a loss because he doesn’t remember this side of Snafu where he was so unresponsive and defensive without a derogatory remark to accompany the cold attitude.

He takes a deep breath to steady his resolve, refusing to let Snafu’s standoffishness get to him and prays he won’t make matters worse by saying, “I’m sorry for not belivin’ you.”

Snafu is silent for a moment and Eugene laments his closed eyes that are usually so expressive Eugene sometimes feel like he could directly see Snafu’s very soul laid bare before him. It makes him wonder if they are shut to protect them from the glaring sun or whether they’re shut to protect Snafu from Eugene.

“Ya still don’t,” Snafu says eventually and pushes himself up onto his elbows to as he stares contemplatively at the creek while taking a long drag of his smoke that burns it down to its filter.

“You don’t know that,” Eugene argues immediately, but knows he’s not being entirely truthful. He’s still struggling to accept and understand it all, even as much as he wants to. 

“Call it a woman’s intuition or whatever,” Snafu’s huffs sarcastically, his movements aggressive as he throws the butt of the cigarette into the clear water of the creek, and Eugene can tell this is affecting him far more than he’s letting on.

“Are you… alright?”  Eugene asks eventually, not sure how his concern will be received.  

“Do I look alright to you?” Snafu snaps at him angrily and the glare he sends in Eugene’s direction is so fierce that if it had been anyone else but Eugene they would have turned tail immediately.

They wouldn’t be there for the aftermath where they’d see Snafu’ jaw set stubbornly as he struggles to keep his emotion from welling over, and they wouldn’t see how small he was despite all his cocky bravado as he folds in on himself like it’d protect him from actually feeling anything.

“Snafu, I’m –,”

There’s the sound of pounding footsteps making their way quickly over the forest floor that gives Eugene pause, and he shares apprehensive glance with Snafu, who looks just as tense as Eugene feels. Eugene knew logically that there was nothing or no one out to get them here in tiny Mobile, but he had yet to shake the well of anxiety that overcame him when he wasn’t sure what was happening. 

Suddenly, Burgie comes bursting through the bushes and stumbles to a halt in front of them, out of breath and white as a sheet, and Eugene feels his anxiety skyrocket as he watches the usually composed man’s eyes being filled with alarm.

“Someone’s comin’, a group of men, militant or government I think. And not the friendly kind,” he says hurriedly as he glances over his shoulder, “They were lookin’ for you, Sledge.”

“What, me?” Eugene says confused. What could they possibly want with him? He’d serviced his country, there was nothing left for him to do, “Why?”

“I don’t know, I ran to find you before I could hear them properly, but it sounded like –,” There’s a strangled gasp from Burgie as the impact of something hitting his back cuts him off and makes him keel forward as he loses consciousness.

“Burgie!” Snafu jumps forward to catch him, though with Burgie’s momentum and Snafu’s smaller size he struggles catching his weight, so Eugene rushes to help ease the man down gently before they both hit the solid ground.

“How very gentlemanly to help the lady out Corporal, truly,” a voice says drily some feet away from where they were crouching next to Burgie’s prone body.

It draws Eugene’s attention from Snafu’s worried, frustrated frown to see the speaker being a man in an officer’s uniform he doesn’t recognise standing there accompanied by at least five other men, “And I’m terribly sorry about the sergeant. We were going do this peacefully but seems like he has gained quite the interesting insight and was going to spoil the whole surprise. Truly inconvenient that he was here. If we had known we would have prepared better, but don’t worry, we didn’t kill him.”

The group of men doesn’t bare any resemblance to any marines or soldiers Eugene knew, and their blank faces as they impassively and unapologetically regard Burgie’s prone, unconscious body and Snafu’s female one sends an unpleasant jolt down Eugene’s spine.

He desperately tries to cling to the cool, logical mind he’d acquired during the war for these types of situations. Tries to assess it rationally and find a way out of it as he considers the officer and men in front of him, but his mind comes up blank. He has no weapon and no plan, and so he kneels on the forest floor as he presses himself closer to Snafu’s side, quietly begging the other man not to do anything rash.

“Oh, I forget my manners!” the officer says when it becomes apparent neither Eugene or Snafu is going to say anything, “I’m Lieutenant Buchanan, Frederick Buchanan. Pleasure.”

His lips stretched into something that Eugene guesses was supposed to be a charming smile, but the effect is ruined by his cold, emotionless eyes and the fact that the men accompanying him had spread out and was now surrounding them. Eugene can hear his own heartbeat pounding in his chest as he studies the men closer and sees that they armed to the teeth with guns and rifles, and he scolds himself for not having paid close enough attention to notice before they’d been surrounded. 

“What do you want?” He asks lowly, praying that they wouldn’t be victim to a massacre today, hoping that this man wanted something he could give him to avoid having his friends brutally murdered in the middle of nowhere, especially now that they were supposed to be safe from all this, dammit.

“I want many things Mr. Sledge. I want a mansion by the river where I can keep my collection of war tokens. I want my wife to stop complaining about my work hours. In fact, I want my wife to stop talking all together. I want a nice bottle of Moët, preferably the cellar full of it. But this is not about what I want, Mr. Sledge,” he says, and huffs a sardonic laugh a he clasps his hands behind his back, “This is about what we’ve come here to do, and that Mr. Sledge, is to retrieve you. By your own volition or by force, up to you.”

There’s the distinct sound of guns cocking, and Eugene feels a fear he hadn’t felt in months and months, since Okinawa or maybe even before that, when he hadn’t been desensitized to all the horrors of war and the prospect of death. It returned full force now though, civilian life having lulled him into a sense of security where he hadn’t had to worry about getting shot at. Or at least, so he had thought.

Eugene senses movement next to him as watches as Snafu pushes himself onto unsteady feet to face the lieutenant, and if possible, feels his fear amplify by a hundred. 

“I don’t give a shit who ya are, you could be the fuckin’ pope for all I care,” Snafu bites angrily, his lips pulled back into a snarl as he stands in front of all these men as defiant as he’d ever been, “There’s no fuckin’ way I’ll let ya assholes take Gene away. He stays here.”

Lieutenant Buchanan jaw sets in annoyance and gives the slightest of inclination of his head, and Eugene barely sees one of the soldiers move before it happens.

The soldier snakes an arm around the Cajun’s narrow waist and picks him up like he weighs absolutely nothing, somehow managing to avoid Snafu’s limbs swinging furiously at him by securing them to his sides and effectively silences him by clamping a large hand over his mouth.

The lieutenant hums in displeasure, his mouth twisting into something akin to disgust as he regards the scene before turning his attention back to Eugene who feels even more helpless and exposed than before without Snafu next to him, “She’s a feisty one. Girlfriend?”

Eugene just stare at him coldly, doing his best to summon the last bit of control within himself so to not lose his head in this situation. As he considers the scene around him, the armed soldiers surrounding them, Burgie lying unconscious on the ground, Snafu doing his best to fight against the much bigger soldier holding him, he realises that’s the only thing that could save them now was a miracle.   

“Anyway,” Buchanan says dismissively, that disgustingly charming smile back on his face, “Now that there will be no other rude interruptions, Mr. Sledge, I have a proposition for you and I suggest you listen carefully, otherwise –,” 

“You little bitch!”

The shout comes from the soldier who had been containing Snafu, and Eugene twist around to see the much larger man force Snafu to the ground, using his much heavier mass to press the now small body into the cold, hard forest floor.

Buchanan looks mildly irritated at the scuffle, “You’re a trained soldier, how are you not able to control one little girl? You are interrupting my very important monologue,” He growls, the charismatic persona fading away to give way for wrath and conceited self-importance.

The soldier holding Snafu down looks fearful at the shift in personality, and Eugene strongly suspect that the lieutenant is nothing like the welcoming and polite person he is pretending to be. 

“Fuck. You.” Snafu spits in the officer’s direction as he struggles against the soldier who looks like he is having trouble keeping him down despite their obvious size differences.

“Shut up!” The soldier commands forcefully, pushing Snafu’s head to the ground and puts all his weight into the knee pressed into Snafu’s back.  

Snafu gasps in pain as his body is crushed underneath the weight, or at least he tries to, his breath coming out in stuttering halts as he struggles for air against the weighty pressure squashing his lungs.

“You’re hurting him!” Eugene hears himself yell distantly as he watches Snafu tries to draw a breath, his breathing becoming more frantic as the seconds pass and he starts to hyperventilate.

“Oh, for god’s sake, just knock her out.”

Buchanan’s pompous voice is ringing in Eugene’s ears but he is too stupefied by Snafu’s growing panic as he watches as his lungs fight for air to pay the words any mind, feeling his terror grab hold of him as his own breathing mirror Snafu’s increasingly distressed ones.

He is so focused on trying to contain his own fear and focus on Snafu’s safety that he doesn’t notice at first the subtle changes taking place in the Cajun. Eugene doesn’t see it before Snafu’s hair shortens and his features turn sharper and more defined, and he watches in astonishment and horror as Snafu’s body lengthens underneath the soldier who jumps off him, joining everyone else in the small clearing in staring at the transformation in shock.

With the relieving of pressure on his back and airways, Snafu rolls over onto his back as he heaves for air, taking large gulps of it, and Eugene gapes at the distinctly male body lying there, which was one that Eugene was distinctly familiar with. One with a smooth expanse of tawny skin stretched over a flat chest, one with unruly and wiry curls that refused to flatten underneath his palm as he’d drag his fingers over Snafu’s scalp, one with large and steady hands that would graze Eugene’s side at every opportunity.

There was no way to possibly explain what he’d just witnessed, but Eugene could no longer deny or doubt what Burgie and Snafu have tried to tell him. He just couldn’t help but wonder _howhowhow_.

“Corporal Shelton!” Buchanan exclaims, not sounding nearly shocked enough in Eugene’s opinion, “What a pleasure. We wondered where you’d gone since we couldn’t find you in New Orleans.”

Snafu only glares furiously in the lieutenant’s direction as he continues to struggle to still his breath. Each inhale is a loud, short wheeze, as if he cannot get enough oxygen, and Eugene listens with increasing alarm as he realizes that Snafu’s windpipe has been crushed during the scuffle, which would mean that his ribs were most likely broken as well.

Without second thought he leaps over to Snafu who is still laying on his back on the cold ground, paying no attention to the rocky undergrowth tearing at the skin of his knees as he lands next to him and firmly grabs hold of the side of his face to get him to look at him.

Snafu’s large eyes is filled with fear and Eugene does his best to hide his own as he reassures him, “Snafu, it’ll be alright. Just breath, you gotta calm down and breath. Please, you gotta. Please.”

No matter how much he begs though Snafu’s breathing doesn’t improve, and it isn’t before large, calloused fingers grabs hold of his hands cradling Snafu’s face and give them a weak, reassuring squeeze that Eugene realizes he was crying.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeats it like a mantra, though he isn’t exactly sure what he’s apologizing for. He feels vulnerable and stupid, but how could he not? There was nothing he could do to save his friends, and somehow, in the course of twenty minutes, everything that had been so peaceful and boring had become completely fucked, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Take them away,” Eugene hears the lieutenant order before he’s forcefully pushed over so the soldiers can pick Snafu up, who groans in pain in response to the manhandling, “His powers aren’t really useful to us, but I suppose we can find a bed for him on the breeding farm if we can force him to change back to a female. He might produce something more beneficial.”

Everything is falling apart around him, and Eugene feels like time comes to a halt as panic and terror rampages his mine as he watches Burgie and Snafu being dragged away. Just as a bejewelled hand lands on his shoulder it feels like the pit of his stomach drops unpleasantly, and Eugene has this strange, overwhelming sensation of falling that makes him feel sick and forces him to shut his eyes to block out the sensation.

The sensation disappears as fast as it’d come, and Eugene shoots back up into a sitting position, not even having felt the impact from his fall, before he blinks his eyes back open to see that he was… in bed. He was in his bedroom.

The sun was out, and the birds were singing, and Eugene, still filled with panic grabs for the clock on his nightstand which shows that it was only half eight in the morning. But how was that possible? He’d just been in the forest behind the house and seen his friends being carried away by a large group of soldiers.

Maybe it’d been a nightmare. He often had very vivid nightmares which he sometimes struggled with realizing it’d been just that right after returning to wakefulness. This felt different though, he wasn’t in the post-sleep fog he’d usually experienced after his nightmares, his mind feeling clear and awake.

Jesus, maybe he was going crazy like Burgie, he thought as he pushed himself out of bed with arms still shaky from residual panic. 

“Ow!” He complains as he stands up, his knees stinging painfully as torn skin stretches and tugs at the fresh wounds there. Those had most certainly not been there yesterday; the only time Eugene could remember hurting his knees being when he had –

Instinctively Eugene touches his cheek, and his fingers come away wet with fresh tears. 

With some effort he manages to suppress his nausea as he sprints out of his room, not even bothering with getting dressed as he heads for the guest room. His mind tries to reason with him about how crazy this was, how impossible it was, but somehow, he just knew that what he’d seen hadn’t been some figment of his imagination or some awful nightmare. He was certain he’d seen Snafu take his dying breaths.

Swinging open the door to the guest room he is greeted with the sight of the two exact people he was looking for, and if it hadn’t been for the scrapes on his knees and the wetness on his face he would start to believe he’d finally lost it.

“Sledge, have you been –,” Burgie asks from where he’s standing by the bed half-dressed with his shirt open and his hair in disarray, “Is everything alright?”

Eugene’s attention is nowhere on Burgie though, only on the figure of a girl sitting on the window ledge where they’d attempted to fan the smoke from their cigarette outside before Eugene had stormed in.

Now Snafu was considering him with worry and hesitance, and Eugene strides right up to his small, feminine form and envelops him in a tight embrace. Snafu is tense at first, but Eugene feels his body slowly relaxes as he returns the hug and wraps his slim arms around Eugene, resting his cheek on Eugene’s chest.

He wondered if Snafu was able to hear his pounding heart which felt like it was about to burst out of his ribcage, and he shuddered at the thought as it just reinforced the memory that had sent him running to find Snafu in the first place.

Eugene threads his fingers through the long curls at the back of Snafu’s head while the other tightens around his narrow waist to ground himself, to feel that Snafu was actually okay where he was standing in his arms.

“Gene?” Snafu’s voice is low and throaty, and Eugene would never understand how Snafu could make something as simple as his name sound so concerned, inquisitive and caring all at once.

“I thought I had lost you,” Eugene whispers into Snafu’s hair, worried that it would come true if he was too loud and shattered the fragile bubble the two of them seemed to be standing in.

“What do ya mean?” Eugene can feel Snafu’s lips move against his bare chest as he whispers back at him, and Eugene involuntarily tighten his arms around Snafu’s figure.

“You were dying, Snafu. You were dying, and I couldn’t save you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small warning, this has not been properly proofread but I will get on that as soon my thesis has been handed in and I function like a proper human again.

Snafu draws away as far as Eugene’s arms that are still wound tightly around him will allow to get a proper look at Eugene’s face as he says incredulously, “What?” 

What did he mean, he had seen him dying? Snafu was feeling just fine, discounting the fact this was the third morning he had woken up in this godforsaken body, and he was starting to wonder if he'd be stuck like his forever. He refused to go down that road though, wouldn’t let his own despair distract him from Eugene's, whose arms were gripping tightly at his waist as he was worried Snafu would vanish in front of his very eyes.  

“Eugene,” Snafu says, trying to project how he’d imagine Ack-ack would sound like in this situation; caring but firm, “What happened?” He was exactly sure if he was succeeding, having always been terrible at handling emotions.  

“I t-think I saw something impossible. Maybe the future of some sort, I don’t know, but I saw it. There were men, military I think, that were looking for us, and you... they sedated Burgin and when you tried to stand up to them they pick you up like you weighted nothing, and then –,” 

“Sledge, did they say what they wanted?” Burgie interrupts, seemingly oblivious of the warning glare Snafu ends in his direction.  

Snafu would have to be stupid to not have noticed the man’s change in behaviour as of late, how he seemed adamant to shield Snafu from any kind of shit that might even glance in his direction, and it’s pissing him off because despite him looking outwardly different he was still the same person that had stood beside Burgie in three major battles. He wondered if Burgie was aware that he was doing it, or if he was just adhering to some intrinsic, unconscious impulse to protect. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen Burgie act this way, but it’d never been so openly directed at him before. If possible, it made Snafu hate this female body even more.  

“No,” Sledge says, drawing a deep, composing breath as he calms down some but still refuses to let go of Snafu, who is disturbed by how Eugene's large hands are only inches away from encircling his waist completely in their grip, “There was an officer there, a Lieutenant Buchanan, who implied something about using your powers but it wasn’t very clear what they wanted beyond take us way.” 

Eugene turns his attention back to Snafu, who has to suppress a shudder from the intensity in his eyes alone, and he is painfully reminded just why he had to leave Eugene behind on that train. 

“I’m sorry for not believin’ you.” 

Snafu found it difficult to maintain his usual composure when Eugene was so sincere and so, so close, his fingers branding his skin where they were wound tight over his ribs, “What changed you’ mind all of a sudden? I’m strugglin' to believe some government assholes was enough to suddenly change you’ mind.” 

“You changed back.” 

It feels like someone drops a bucket of ice water over Snafu’s head and he takes a step away from the safety Eugene's arms to stare him in the eye to check for a hint of insincerity but finds none, “How?” he asks faintly, not quite daring to hope after days of disappointment. 

“I don’t know,” Eugene shakes his head, and Snafu feels his stomach drop despite himself, “You were in danger, I think maybe that it might have triggered it, but I can’t say for sure.”  

“You’ sayin' I need to put mahself in danger to change back? Get knocked ‘round a bit? Shouldn't be too difficult,” he turns to Burgie with a smirk that feels out of place on his face in that moment, “Would'ya like a free swing, sergeant? Don’t tell me ya ain't tempted, I know you’ve thought about it.”  

Burgie's mouth twist with amusement though he does his best to hide it as he says curtly, “No, absolutely not. As your commanding officer it has never crossed my mind.” 

“Really? ‘Cause I distinctly remember in Melbourne –,” 

“These people will be here any minute,” Eugene interrupts their discussion with some urgency, “Can we please keep it civil and the punchin’ to a minimum until we are at least out of life threatening danger?” 

 _This ain't over,_ Snafu thinks sourly, knowing that Burgie heard him from the way the corners of his mouth quirks upwards.  

He can't help but feel a bit childish and put out that he was being deprioritized after having already suffered for days like this, feeling constantly on edge and outside of himself because when he looked down he saw things on his body that shouldn’t belong to him. He was uncomfortable and disgusted by it, and even though they were great, sometimes magnificent even, on other people it was just so disconcerting and awful to see all of that as a part of himself. 

He hadn’t seen himself naked since he’d woken up. The glimpses he’d caught of himself then had been enough to put him off wanting to undress again, though he was becoming increasingly aware he was in need of a shower as he still smelt of sex and alcohol. If nothing else, he was definitely contributing to science and debunking the myth that girls only smelt like flowers and sunshine.  

With a grimace, he pushes the unpleasant thought away just as he catches Burgie staring at him with an intent look on his face while Eugene is gesturing animatedly as he speaks, not aware that his audience is more concerned about Snafu’s dysphoria than the supposed militant group that is going to turn up to capture them.  

The same scepticism that had made its presence known when Burgie had told him about his mind-reading back in New Orleans takes hold of him as he considers Eugene. Eugene who seems to have a sudden change of heart overnight, claiming that he has already experienced this day before, “Okay but are we just not goin’ ta question that Sledgehamma' suddenly seem able to travel in time?” 

An unfamiliar pang of guilt hits him at Eugene's betrayed look in his direction, but he resolutely ignores it to raise an inquisitive brow at him, silently asking him for proof. Besides, the petty reptilian part of his brain tells him, now Eugene knew what he felt like yesterday when he refused to believe him last night.

“I’m not sure if that’s exactly what I did,” Eugene says with a frown, crossing his long arms over a thin chest and Snafu can’t help but let his eyes stray with the movement, “But I am sure of what I saw. This mornin’ was exactly like last time I woke up except I hadn’t scraped my knees when I went to bed last night, which only happened when we were attacked. I don’t know what else to tell you to convince you guys, and I know that after doubting you myself just yesterday you have every right to be sceptical, but you have to trust me on this. We need to get away. Jay will be calling any second, and we need to mobilize so –,”  

“Hold on, Jay?” Burgie asks, though Snafu was starting to suspect he already knew what was happening and was simply asking for his and Eugene's benefit.  

Eugene seems unaware of the possibility, answering the sergeant as dutifully as always, “He called, or rather is going to call to get my father’s advice.”  

Just as Snafu is about to ask why Eugene was being so secretive all of a sudden, Burgie pales dramatically and whispers, “Jay is affected too.” 

“What?” 

Snafu is ignored as Eugene nods solemnly at Burgie, “Yes, I think so. It certainly sounded like it by some of the things he was sayin’ over the phone at least. He asked about people vanishin’ and turning invisible, so I strongly suspect that is what has happened to him.” 

“So lem’me get ‘his straight,” Snafu says loudly, his feminine voice ringing in his ears as he interrupts whatever wise, considerate thing Burgie is about to say, but he decides he doesn’t give a shit as a great sense of unfairness burns under his skin, “Burgie can read minds, you can fuckin’ travel through time or some shit, and now you' tellin’ me Jay can turn invisible? And I'm stuck as fuckin’ this shit? Are ya fuckin’ serious!?”  

He didn’t care if he was acting irrational as he gestures wildly, feeling slightly hysterical as the tension and fear that had been building the past three days seep out between the fine cracks in his control. He is aware he probably looks insane with his large, untamed curls and small stature, that they were probably thinking this whole female transformation affair was affecting his mind as well as body which it _wasn't_ , except it kind of was but not in the way they most likely suspected. They couldn’t know how terrifying the whole ordeal was, wouldn’t understand, and even though Eugene had just told him he had changed back in some different future it didn’t mean it would happen in this one, and Snafu, who had always been conditioned to expect the worst, couldn’t help but fear that he was doomed to be like this forever.  

“Snaf? Snafu, are you listenin’?” 

He doesn’t notice that he had started shaking before Burgie is standing close, too close, his hand hovering only inches away from his shoulder but clearly remembering Snafu's reaction last time he’d tried to touch him.  

Snafu brushes the hand off and backs away from the man, embarrassment flushing his cheeks as he realises Burgie had probably heard his whole internal breakdown. He had been so careful to keep his emotions and thoughts under wraps while around him, and though he’d let some slip by accident now and then, particularly before he had known of all of this shit affecting not just him, Burgie hadn’t _known_.  

There is a pregnant, uncomfortable pause and Snafu worries that Burgie is about to say something stupidly sentimental in front of Eugene. It was bad enough that Burgie knew how terrible he was coping with this, he didn’t need Eugene of all people to know that too, especially considering how he seemed to be looking at Snafu differently, almost distant. It was lacking its usual warmth that made Snafu’s stomach flop pleasantly, and though he knew exactly what he had done to Eugene by leaving without a goodbye, it still stung worse than any shrapnel cutting into his skin. He really didn’t want Eugene to have another reason to hate him.

“Sledge,” Burgie commands using his sergeant voice, snapping Snafu out of his thoughts once again. He notices that Burgie’s eyes lingers on Snafu for a second before landing on Eugene who is some feet away from them with a worried frown on his face, “Jay will be calling any minute, right? If you're right about this, we should all pack our things and leave as soon as you’ve talked to him. They might be after Jay if he is affected too, so warn him and tell him to come meet us as soon as he can.” 

“Where should I tell him to meet up?” 

“I trust you to think of somewhere safe.”  

Eugene nods with a curt ‘yessir’, and with only an indecipherable glance in Snafu’s direction he is out of the large bedroom, leaving Burgie and Snafu alone to deal with the tense atmosphere between them. 

Snafu glares furiously at his bag sitting at the foot of the bed, ignoring the way his skin is crawling from Burgie’s stare that is demanding his attention which Snafu is refusing to give him. He had already embarrassed himself enough today, he didn’t need to see whatever pathetic sympathy Burgie was emoting on his behalf. 

“I know you don’t want to hear what I’ve gotta say, and that I’ve already told ya I ain’t goin’ to pretend I get it, but you need to know that I am willing to try. I know I ain’t Sledge or anyone like that, but we used to be close, remember?”

He hates how earnest Burgie is sounding, how it leaves an unpleasant lump in his throat, because it was true, they had used to be close. Burgie, Jay and him. They had all gotten through boot camp together with that asshole of a drill sergeant who deliberately kept mispronouncing Jay’s last name and mocked Snafu’s birthname by calling him Mary. When they had been shipped off to Melbourne and he had introduced Burgie to that pretty girl at the bar with the brightest, kindest smile when Burgie had been too polite to bother her. In Gloucester when Snafu had been on the brink of going asiatic, and Burgie and Jay had sat awake with him the whole night, both a silent but solid, comforting presence. 

He missed them both, he realises, though it does nothing to change the fact that Burgie’s offer remained redundant, only a superficial comfort at this point, “Ya can hear all I’m thinkin’ anyway, so what’s the fuckin’ point of talking’,” he spits bitterly.

“Hell, Snaf’, I don’t need to read your mind to know what you’re thinking. You’re always up to no good, doesn’t take a fuckin’ genius to figure out what’s on your mind,” Burgie teases light-heartedly, “Besides, talking stuff out is good for you. I thought you knew that considering how much shit that comes out of your mouth.”

Snafu huffs in amusement despite himself, “Yeah well, hate to break it to ya, but shit change. Get used to it.”

“Yeah, you’re right, though that doesn’t mean that things can’t change for the better.”

“And ya’re tellin’ me I’m full of it. Are ya even listenin’ to whatcha sayin’?” Snafu honestly believes that Burgie wasn’t, because no one was that full of goodwill and bullshit all at once. Not even the fuckin’ son of Christ and Snafu would know as his mother had made sure he suffered through enough Sunday sermons in his lifetime.

Burgie shrugs noncommittally as he starts roaming the room to gather the few articles of clothing he had discarded the night before, “I’m just tryin’ to help Snaf’, ya don’t have to decimate Christianity just ’cause ya don’t like what I am tellin’ you.”

Snafu refuse to dignify that with an answer, having been heavily conditioned from first hand experience that getting into arguments about religion with anyone was just one big, bad idea all around.

“On the matter of changin’ things for the better though,” Burgie says conversationally as he shuts his bag with the sound of leather strings snapping together, “If Sledge is right you we should make sure we have everythin’ and head out, we can’t say for sure when these guys will arrive but I’d rather not stick around to find out.”

“So ya really believe that Sledgehamma’ saw the future or somethin’?” Snafu asks, but easily accepts the change of topic for the offering it is and does as he is instructed, and picks up his bag from the floor, making sure that his knife and change of clothes are still inside.

“’Is just a precaution,” Snafu mutters and pushes the knife deeper into the pile of balled up clothes in the bottom of his bag when he sees Burgie’s inquisitive brow in his direction. He might not have had any use for it yet with Burgie around, for which he was thankful, but the stares he had received yesterday still sent a disgusted shudder down his spine and even though he hoped he didn’t need it, the knife weighting down his bag was still a small comfort.

“Considering what Sledge just told us was about to happen, I don’t think a knife is entirely unwarranted, though if they have firearms…” Burgie trails off absently and Snafu get the meaning of his words; he was literally carrying a knife into a gun-fight.

Snafu chews uncomfortably on his bottom lip as he sees the troubled expression bloom on Burgie’s face. He did not need to be a mind-reader to know what was going on in Burgie’s head in that moment, knows that it was an unfair situation, because were they not supposed to get some peace soon? They had hardly been civilians for a couple of weeks before they seemed right back in the heat of things.

Unable to offer empty words of comfort, because that all they’d be, he turns his attention away from Burgie to do a quick, last-minute check of the room to make sure they had not left anything. There really wasn’t any point to it except to give Burgie a moment, as they had barely unpacked anything last night except to change into a dry set of clothes, Snafu’s wet ones already stuffed half-damp into the bottom of his bag when he had replaced the soaking flannel with a t-shirt he was pretty sure had been white at some point. It might be worn but it was good enough to sleep in, and it drowned out any shapes or curves his body might have beneath the oversized material.

As if on que, dark-yellow folds of fabric gleams in the corner of his peripherals from where it is sitting innocently on top of the polished dresser in the corner, having been left untouched since one of the servant girls had left it there for him with an apologetic smile in his direction the night before.

Snafu hated it.

It was girly, plain and too pretty, and he hated how he was thinking it would look nice on the girl who had brought it to him, or any other girl for that matter, and he hated what that meant for him too, because he was not supposed to even consider how it was going to look on him in the first place.

“Stare any harder at it and maybe it will magically combust.”

“It’d be an improvement,” Snafu replies petulantly and hefts his nearly-empty bag over his shoulder.

He was feeling disgusting and out of place, and the dress only served as a reminder of why exactly he was feeling that way. He wanted nothing more than to leave this socially suffocating house, so he could catch a damn breath and feel like himself if only for a little bit, maybe even figure out how to fix shit. Eugene had said he had seen it happened, so there must be a way, but the solution certainly wasn’t in this house, and so as he glares at the innocent dress one last time before he wills himself to move.

“So,” Burgie starts slowly as Snafu pushes past him towards the exit, the vowels rolling of his tongue like syrup as he glances between Snafu and the neat folds sitting atop the dresser, “Are ya not goin’ to bring it?”

“Fuck no.”

Burgie is about to open his mouth to say something Snafu suspected would be very considerate yet reproachful when the door to the room swings open to reveal Eugene standing there, this time fully dressed in a crisp, white shirt and some slacks, his red hair combed and tamed from the fiery, beautiful mess it had been just minutes earlier.

“Sorry, did I interrupt somethin’?” he asks carefully as he eyes them searchingly, obviously sensing the uncomfortable atmosphere that had become a permanent fixture in Snafu’s company as of late.

“No, we’ good,” Snafu mutters, aware that Eugene didn’t have mind-reading bullshit powers and hadn’t been around enough for the past two days to know that general dissatisfaction and bad mood wasn’t because of anything he or anyone else did.  

 “I managed to get a hold of Jay over the phone,” Eugene says eventually when it becomes clear neither Burgie or Snafu was going to elaborate, “I’m not sure how much I was supposed to tell him, but I said just enough for it to be not completely unbelievable.”

“Yeah, probably best not to disclose everythin’ over the telephone,” Burgie nods, “So where did you tell him to meet? In… won’t that be obvious?”

Eugene looks positively stunned and Snafu could empathise, knowing fully well how disconcerting Burgie’s mind-reading shit was. Hell, it was an unfair advantage that Snafu knew Burgie was uncomfortable with and Snafu suspected that it was not quite as easy to control as Burgie made it sound like, meaning he didn’t intend to listen in on everything they were thinking. Still, Snafu wishes that someone would tell him the plan because he didn’t have that ability, all that had happened with him was that he had lost eight inches.

“Not really,” Eugene says, following up on whatever silent information Burgie had picked up on, “Bill was discharged long before we were, almost a year ago, he wouldn’t have been involved in whatever caused us to be like this, and Brooklyn is a huge place. With that many civilians around they’d never find us, and we’d be impossible to target.”

Snafu blinks at Eugene in disbelief, having cottoned on to the missing piece of the conversation and felt a little bit betrayed that he was not consulted about this before Eugene decided for all of them that they were going to Brooklyn to see Bill fucking Leyden of all people. Leyden who would probably laugh his ass off when he found them out, would probably think this girl-powers bullshit was fitting Snafu as he wouldn’t ever fucking shut up about his birthname being a girl’s name, calling him Mary and shit. 

“Hell nah, I ain’t letting fuckin’ Leyden see me like this.”

“Snafu, we would be safe there.”

Snafu feels Eugene’s eyes on him in a silent plea and Eugene’s concern for him is almost like a physical touch, an unbearable heat all over Snafu’s skin. It’s heady and suffocating, and Snafu wants nothing more than to let Eugene sweep him back up in his arms, but he is adamant in his decision and stays rooted in his spot, caught in-between Burgie and Eugene who are both looking at him with various degrees of sympathy. Sympathy that made anger churn in his gut, because there was nothing that infuriated him more than all those sad, soft eyes directed at him as if he was something to be pitied.

“We can find somewhere else, fuck we can stay at mah apartment if ya want to be surrounded by civilians, ain’t like New Orleans isn’t big enough.”

Eugene sigh resignedly, but it is Burgie who is the one to reassure him, “We don’t have to tell him who ya are, but I agree with Sledge. Bill might be our safest bet for now.”

The fact that Burgie knew exactly why he didn’t want to go but still insisted only upset him further, “Oh, so are you just going to introduce me as your fiancé again? Because maybe Leyden is idiot enough to believe that, but Jay won’t,” Snafu spits and hopes that Burgie could hear how much of a traitor he thought he was being in that moment.

Burgie’s face betrayed nothing as he quirks an inquisitive eyebrow at him, his tone calm and reasonable as he says, “Do you have any better suggestions?”

Snafu doesn’t. That is how he finds himself a few hours later sitting sulking on a train that is hunkering its way Eastwards while squeezed between the cold glass of the window showing landscape rapidly passing by and Burgie who is blocking the exit to the middle isle of the train, with Eugene sitting opposite of them with a permanent concerned frown on his face.

They had left for the train station not long after their argument, the only reason Snafu eventually agreed to go was that Eugene and Burgie promised they would find a believable lie as to who he was until they could find a more permanent solution to their problems.

At least he got to leave that goddamn house. That goddamn town.

Snafu had never felt as uncomfortable in his life as when he had walked through Mobile to the train station with Burgie and the Sledge’s who had insisted to accompany them to see them all off. Snafu didn’t know what lie Eugene had sprouted to his parents for them be so happy about his departure, but he had found that he didn’t particularly care as he felt onlookers stare at their small group, or rather him as he had stuck out like a sore, ugly thumb amongst all this wealth and flourish in his worn shirt and jeans with holes at the knees. People seemed to have a problem with him as they looked at him with something akin to disgust, and he had pulled the sleeves further down his arms to cover up his tawny skin. It was bad enough that he was wearing jeans when he looked like a woman, it was only made worse by the fact that he definitely wasn’t as pearly white as the rest of the population of Mobile. And maybe, just maybe he was over thinking it, but he was pretty sure Mrs. Sledge wouldn’t have offered him the servant’s clothes but her own if he’d been three shades lighter.    

It was only once they had gotten onto the train and had crossed the state lines that he felt like he could breathe again. 

“It will be a couple more hours until we’re in New York,” Burgie breaks the silence between them as he folds up that day’s paper and glances at his watch, “I am going to go look for the food trolley, see what they’ve got stocked. You guys want anythin’?”

“I’m good,” Snafu mutters without letting his eyes stray away from the outside world passing by in an unfocused blur. Exhaustion was starting to settle in after the mental and physical strain of the last few days catch up to him, and he didn’t feel like committing to anything in that moment not even moving to get a coffee.

Burgie leaves when Eugene politely declines the offer as well, and Snafu tenses instinctively as they are left alone together, realising that this would be the first time without supervision since that night on the train.

Slowly he glances over at Eugene who has a book perched in his lap and a pencil pinched between his long fingers that are frozen in mid-air, the lead hovering just above the paper as Eugene catches him dead in the eye.

Snafu shudders, reminded once again of the intensity of Eugene’s emotion just that morning when he had barged into the guest bedroom like a man possessed. Snafu wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the details of what had upset Eugene so much that he had so unashamedly embraced and clung onto Snafu like that, though it appeared that whatever Eugene had experienced in the future had terrified him more than any Jap shelling had ever done. Eugene was hiding it well as he had busied himself with his scribbling but the dark circles that were like groves on his face betrayed him and Snafu couldn’t help the familiar well of concern that only made its presence known in Eugene’s company come to the surface.

“You look dead, Gene. Why don’tcha get some rest.”

Eugene considers him evenly for a second over the spine of his book, “I would, but have to keep an eye on you, don’t I?”

“Did Burgie put ya up to this?” Snafu frowns but is too emotionally exhausted to sound anything but resigned. He wouldn’t be surprised if Burgie had asked Eugene to keep an eye on him, not when Snafu had made it perfectly clear how much he did not care for any of this.

“No. Burgie might be worryin’ a lot about how this is all affecting you, and rightly so, but I don’t think he is even aware that he should worry over the possibility that you could just disappear off this train when no one is lookin’.”

Snafu is quiet. He couldn’t possibly begin to explain the reason as to why he had chosen to do what he did. Things were already complicated between them, he really didn’t need to make shit worse.

“I am not angry with you, Shelton. I just wish…” Eugen pinches the bridge of his nose as if he was getting a headache from just talking to him, “Ya know what, never mind. It’s not important.”  

“Alright,” Snafu concedes, a mix of relief and disappointment filling him as Eugene’s lets the matter go. He knew that talking it out was probably the reasonable thing to do, but Snafu was the first one to admit that he had never really been all that reasonable in his life.

Worrying his bottom lip, Snafu glances out of the window and the land enshrouded in grey clouds then back at Eugene who returns to scribbling in his book. An actual book to take notes in instead of that dilapidated bible that had gone everywhere with him from what Snafu could see from his seat.

He knew Eugene kept tally of the months they spent out on campaigns during the war, but no one spent that much time hunched over a book drawing lines to keep track of the days, but Snafu had never really thought to ask exactly what he was so busy writing and Eugene had never disclosed what it was to him either.

Curious, Snafu leans forward from his curled-up position in his seat to get a peak of the pages with no luck, “What are ya writin’?”

Eugene’s pencil only pauses briefly over the paper before it resumes its’ movements, the short strokes revealing nothing of what they were creating, “It’s a journal. To keep track of things. Stuff that happens. Thoughts.”   

It was a cryptic, flat answer, but Snafu could hear the underlying resentment and sadness in Eugene’s voice as he said it and understood all too well. This was Eugene’s way of coping, a way to air all of that shit inside of himself that the war had left them with. Everyone thought they would just get over it, but Snafu could still feel a hollowness inside himself that was eating away at him, all-consuming.

“How… how have ya been? Seriously,” Snafu busies himself with a long lock of hair that had escaped from the rests of the mess of curls draping down his back, watches with detached interest as the dark strands twists around his now dainty fingers.

He really wasn’t any good at this emotional bullshit, but he despised how barren and sad Eugene looked in that moment despite his best attempt to hide it behind an impassive mask. Eugene had never been good at hiding his emotions, least of all from Snafu.

Eugene sighs. It is long and weary, and it sounds like it should belong to a ninety-year-old man, not to a twenty-two-year-old barely grown out of his own boyhood.

“I got ya boys both a freezin’ Cola, thought it might cheer ya up.”

Snafu quietly curses Burgie and his godawful timing. There was a moment when it looked like Eugene might have – he stops his own train of thought abruptly, Burgie’s powers almost like a tangible presence in his mind. It is not that he could actually feel the sergeant messing around in there, but the knowledge that he might be is enough to make Snafu feel paranoid. He searches his mind quickly to distract Burgie from the fact he had almost let his and Eugene’s private conversation slip.

A Creolean lullaby his Maman used to sing for him when he had been little; ‘ _Galine, galine, galine, galo_ ,’ the soft melody of his Maman’s voice seemed to echo from his memories, and Snafu lets himself relax a bit as he focuses on the song.

Burgie doesn’t comment as he passes Snafu the cold soda, though Snafu swears he could see the faint traces of relief on Burgie’s own face as Snafu quietly hums the tune to himself. It was easy to forget that Burgie with all of his noble intentions and compassion didn’t like being privy to all of their private thoughts and inner conflicts.

Snafu risks a last, tentative glance in Eugene’s direction, but the other man is wholly focused on the book in his lap now, their talk already seemingly forgotten, and there is a pang of disappointment that settles heavily in Snafu’s chest that he doesn’t care to examine too closely in that moment.

Instead he lets himself be distracted as Burgie nudges him carefully and tells him that he still has some time to catch some sleep in New York if he wanted. Snafu wants to argue that he isn’t tired, but he knew that Burgie was perfectly aware of how little shuteye Snafu had actually had the last few days as he had kept telling him to get into bed and stop smoking like a goddamn chimney all night.

With no energy to argue, Snafu curls more tightly into his seat and lets himself be lulled into a distant state of unconsciousness by the sounds of the train’s engine and the near-silent scratching of Eugene’s pencil drawing across paper.

It is dark outside when Snafu is jolted awake by someone whispering his name.

Still disoriented from his nap he rubs at his eyes tiredly as he gets his bearings, trying to get some sense of where he is before everything from the last few days comes flooding back to him. He doesn’t need to glance down at himself to know his current state, but he does so anyway and feels a now familiar well of panic and disgust as he sees his own daintiness and slightly raised chest. Taking a deep breath, he does just like he has practices over the last few days and suppresses all his emotions until he feels like he is able to breathe and function like a normal human again.

When he feels in control again he glances around himself, and he guesses they must have arrived at their destination as both Eugene and Burgie are getting dressed in their coats and retrieving their bags from the overhead lockers.

Snafu stretches in his seat with a yawn, his spine popping loudly as he unfurls from his uncomfortable sleeping position.

“I think we should get a cab to Bill’s,” Burgie says as he pulls Snafu’s bag down from the locker, which Snafu snatches from his hands when he sees that the sergeant is about to shoulder it himself. Burgie’s smile is a bit abashed, “I’m tired and I don’t think my country boy head is capable of figuring out the infamous subway Bill kept ravin’ about.”

Everyone is too tired to argue, and they slip off the train in companionable silence to search for a taxi that drives them right to the steps of a big apartment complex in the southern parts of Brooklyn.

The loud sound of Eugene knocking on Leyden’s door on the fourth floor seem to snap Snafu out of a stupor he wasn’t even aware that he had let himself slip into, but the thudding of knuckles hitting hard word wakes him up more than any gunshot ever could as he realises belatedly and with some alarm that they never came up with a believable excuse as to why he was with Eugene and Burgie like this.

It still wasn’t too late to turn tail, Snafu thinks, but just as he does this a firm hand plants itself on his narrow shoulders and secures him to the spot, and Snafu glares half-heartedly over at Burgie who appears as a solid presence next to him. 

Snafu is about to bite something particularly incriminating at him when the door is pushed open in a big arch, and suddenly Leyden is standing there in all his stunted, blonde glory.   

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says with a grin, his smile even more crooked now that a long scar runs down his left cheek, “If it ain’t Eugene fuckin’ Sledge. Whatcha doin’ in Brooklyn?”

Eugene chuckles weakly at the greeting as Leyden claps his back heartily, and Snafu sneers in contempt at the display of affection.

Burgie’s grip tightens around his shoulder.

“Sergeant, you’re a long way from home,” Leyden turns to Burgie and Snafu when he is done feeling up Eugene, “And I’m guessin’ this must be the new missus? Sure are punching above your weight, if you don’t mind me sayin’.”

Heat burns high in Snafu’s cheeks as an unfamiliar but particular brand of shame ignites within him from being objectified by fucking Leyden of all people. He was aware of some of the leers from men that he had been on the end of since he had turned into _this_ , and though uncomfortable it had been something he had been able to push to the back of his mind as it hadn’t directly affected him, but no one had spoken so directly about how he looked as if how pretty he was is all that mattered.

Snafu guesses it was supposed to have been a compliment, but he only feels sick. 

“So, to what do I owe this pleasure, huh?” Leyden asks as he ushers them inside the cluttered apartment.

Eugene delivers some half-assed lie to Leyden, but Snafu is too busy drawing deep, composing breaths to listen so he doesn’t have another embarrassing incident like that morning.

It was just so unfair. It was all so _fucking_ unfair.

He wished he had never left his apartment. At least then he could still be deceiving himself into believing that this was all some sort of fucked up dream that he would wake up from, but no, instead he had gone out on some ridiculous venture which had gotten him involved in some fucked up shit with some secret government bullshit. Which he wasn’t even sure was real by the way, he only had Eugene’s word that it was true, but who knows, maybe they had all just gone asiatic collectively and were still stuck on those fucking islands in the Pacific. It seemed a whole lot more likely than this absurd magic shit they were currently experiencing.

“Breathe,” Burgie whispers in his ear, his warm breath puffing against the shell of it and making Snafu jump in surprise, “It’s alright.”

Snafu wants to argue that it is definitely not alright, but just then Leyden with his loud, obnoxious voice says something that definitely distracts him from his own spiralling thoughts, “So why isn’t Shit ’n Ass here with you?”

“Uh,” Eugene hesitates as his gaze slip over to Snafu in a mild panic, having obviously not been prepared for the question despite the fact that big brain of his should have known Leyden was going to ask, “Y’know Snafu. Busy, probably.”

“Busy with what? Boy was attached to you at the hip, Gene. Did you break his heart or somethin’, ‘cause I’m pretty sure the man would rise from the dead for you, just sayin’.”

“I don’t know about that,” Eugene says dismissively, obviously trying to brush the issue aside but Leyden blabbers on without taking the hint like the idiot he was. 

“Nah, he definitely would. Never seen a marine care that much about a replacement, y’know?  Honestly thought there wasn’t a force in this world that could separate the two of you, so colour me surprised, I guess.”

His tone is joking but his words are hitting too close to the truth for Snafu who feels the pit of his stomach drop a bit further with fear for each truth leaving Leyden’s lips.

He glances over at Eugene whose whole face has hardened like stone, his jaw working furiously as he refuses to return Snafu’s desperate gaze. Eugene had said he wasn’t angry with Snafu for what had happened on the train, but the way his eyes darkens dramatically as Leyden speaks belies his earlier words.

Leyden continues on happily, having obviously not picked up on the shift in atmosphere in the room, “Anyways, it just seems odd to me that he isn’t here. Thought that after all that you’d been through that you basically would be buying that white picket fence together by now.”

Something in Eugene’s eyes seems to crack, something angry, sad and unforgiving, and Snafu glimpses a hurt in Eugene that he had worked so hard on protecting him from during the war. Like with everything else in his life it seemed that he had failed in this too, and in the worst way possible because the hurt he was seeing in Eugene now was his fault and his alone.

“When –,”

“Shut up!” Snafu snaps furiously, not wanting to listen to Leyden point out all the ways he had failed Eugene anymore, not wanting to have to watch as Eugene break before his very eyes, “Just shut the fuck up, you fuckin’ asshole!”

Leyden is staring at him in shock, his mouth open and gaping as he tries to stutter out some sort of coherent response, “I – I was only…”

“You what?” Snafu exclaims as he gets in Leyden’s face, rolling with the fury that was rampaging inside of him and making his whole body feel like it was on fire, burning and tugging at his skin painfully until it felt three sizes too small for him, “Acted like a fuckin’ asshole like always is what!”

“Snafu?” Leyden asks faintly, his voice sounding small and pathetic as Snafu towers over him.

“Snafu, that is enough!” 

Years spent in the marines has conditioned him to react instinctively to a direct order and Snafu lurches back as Burgie barks at him, his anger quelling slightly only to be replaced be a deep-seethed bitterness and familiar embarrassment of losing his cool for the second time that day.

“What!” Snafu hisses and spins to face Burgie, “Did ya not hear all the shit he was spewin’? Surely ya don’t expect me to have ta listen to that?”

It only registers with him then the stunned looks on Burgie and Eugene’s faces as they stare at him, both mirroring the same shock that had been on Leyden’s mere seconds ago.

Snafu feels himself faltering, “What?”  

“Shelton!?”

Leyden’s high-pitched scream somehow manage to echo in the narrow space in the apartment, and Snafu thinks that the ringing in his ears is strangely reminiscent of shells dropping around him as Leyden tackles him from behind.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter might take a while since I am in the upcoming weeks right before thesis hand-in, but I will do my best to write on this when I get the chance.  
> I greatly appreciate feedback and what you guys thought of the chapter in the meantime! Thoughts? Liked, disliked? 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

It takes about one second before the shouting erupts and another two before Burgie manages to get his feet to cooperate with him and run over to separate Bill from Snafu, who had the Cajun shoved up against the wall.

‘ _whatthefuck-whatthefuck-whatthefuck'_

“Bill, stop!” Burgie commands, sensing the note of hysteria to the blonde man’s thoughts.

He pushes Bill away from Snafu with some struggle, having forgotten how strong the rifleman actually was despite his short stature, and steps into the space with his back to Snafu to act as a physical barrier between them in case they try jumping each other again.

There is a moment of tense silence as he and Bill stare each other down.

“Oh, thank fuck,” there is a definite masculine relieved exhale behind him, and Burgie turns his head to see Snafu slide to the floor, his back braced against the wall with his hand shoved down the front of his jeans. A once again flat chest heaves a deep breath as Snafu covers his eyes with his free hand as the rest of his body seem to crumble with alleviation, his head hitting the hard-wooden panels supporting him with a loud thud, ‘ _jesus fucking christ, thank fuck, it’s over, it’s fucking over, shit, was so fucking scared, it wasn’t permanent, thank god’._

A small smile pulls at Burgie’s lips as he feels a sense relief and happiness of his own to see that his friend had changed back to his normal self. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t deeply worried for Snafu’s wellbeing, both in a physical sense but also his psyche. The past days had been filled with Snafu’s running mental monologue that had only been distress and fear, and Burgie had never known how much turbulent emotions was beneath the surface of this boy before now. The most upsetting part about it all had been how well he had hidden it all behind a well-crafted mask of indifference and biting remarks, so no one would have ever. It makes Burgie feel guilty because Snafu thinks that he has been managing to keep his internal struggle hidden from him. Feels the need to keep how badly he is coping from Burgie and Sledge to avoid being a burden. It also hurts Burgie to know how bad his friend was hurting from this, and it made him wonder if Snafu had always been this way, suppressing all of his own worries and needs in favour of everyone else’s.

“What the fuck!” Bill exclaims loudly, his voice cracking like a whip in the otherwise silent room.

His mind is a rapid flurry of half-formed thoughts and panic, and Burgie has to concentrate on shutting them out so he can focus on getting control of the situation at hand as both Snafu and Sledge looked pretty out of commission right then; Snafu was sitting shaking on the cluttered apartment floor with his eyes clenched shut and Sledge was standing off to the side looking distraught as he stares at Snafu’s prone form, neither reacting to Bill’s hysteria.

Temporarily pushing away his concern for the two men, he turns his attention back to Bill who is also busy staring at Snafu in a mix of complete bewilderment and wonder as if he had just witnessed impossible magic. Which, to be fair to him, he might have had as they didn’t exactly know what was causing this yet.  

Watching Snafu transform had been nothing like Burgie had ever witnessed before. It had been morbid but also captivating to watch how he seemed to expand and lengthen, his hips narrowing while his chest flattened and expanded, and how his curls seemed to crawl back into his scalp as his face sharpened into familiar angles. It was something taken straight from a fairy-tale, or maybe more like a horror story from how explicit and disturbingly intimate the transformation had felt witnessing.

“Bill, listen,” Burgie says, “I know this all seems impossible, but it is really important that you stay calm, alright?”

Bill jerks away from them, backing himself up against the opposite wall from where Snafu was curled up without letting his eyes stray from the man once. The only indication that he had heard Burgie at all was the flurry of thoughts echoing from him, ‘ _calm, how the fuck can I possibly stay calm, this is fucking impossible, am I going insane, I just saw, I saw, Florence was right there, the girl and Snafu, Snafu had been the girl but that cannot be right, get a fucking grip Bill, but how, how-how-how’_

Burgie looks over at Sledge pleadingly, hoping that he would snap out of whatever shit he was currently going through. He knew Bill a whole lot better than Burgie did and might know what to say to the other man to get through to him. Sledge remained unresponsive though, his stare vacant and his thoughts were so faint that Burgie couldn’t grasp onto a single one to understand what was going through his head.

“Leyden.”

It was Snafu. Snafu who had yet to move from his position on the floor, making Burgie start to worry whether turning back had hurt him. It made him wonder whether the unusual trembling in Snafu’s limbs were from pain or relief, or both.

“Snafu are you okay?”

Burgie is ignored as Snafu and Bill stare each other down. It felt very much like that moment right before two animals were about to leap at each other’ throats, and he worries he might have to interject again when Snafu’s lips pull upwards, baring a row of white teeth in a parody of a smile that makes everyone in the room flinch.

“’You going Asiatic, Leyden? Maybe you’ head ain’t so fuckin’ hard after all, thinkin’ I’m a woman an’ shit.” ‘ _cannot let him know, would never hear the end of it, I am back so it isn’t like he needs to anyway, the less people who know the better, just need to convince him, just as long as Gene and Burgie doesn’t say anything’_

As much as he understands Snafu’s reasoning, why he wants to keep it a secret, it was not fair to Bill who was looking like a fish out of water with the way his mouth moves silently, his mind racing with contradictory thoughts of what it had witnessed versus what Snafu was trying to convince him of. It was the kind of line of thinking that could make a person insane, and Burgie, as much as he wanted to side with his friend, could not stand there and listen to Bill drive himself crazy over this.

“Don’t, Snaf’,” Burgie says, “He knows what he saw.”

Burgie feels terrible about lying to his friend and watch how his face harden to hide the disappointment and shame undeniably there before he casts his eyes downwards to the hands now resting limply in his lap.

“What the fuck is happenin’ here?” Bill asks faintly, and Burgie heaves a sigh as he realizes there will be a lot of explaining to do over the course of the next few days. To Bill, to Jay.

“It is a bit of a long, crazy story, ya probably won’t believe it.”

“Why don’tcha try me and let me be the judge of that, yeah?”

And with another gut-deep sigh Burgie does, starting from the beginning with the faint whispers he had began hearing a bit over a week ago and how they had steadily grown in volume until he had thought he might have been going crazy. He tries to keep it brief and only tells it from how he had experienced it, feeling like he shouldn’t speak for all of them and especially not Snafu who hadn’t moved from his spot on the floor,  who is still picking at his nails intently.

“Holy hell,” Bill says when they are all caught up to the present, “An’ this have happened to all of ya?”

“Yeah. Don’t know how many others have been affected though or if it’s only us,” Burgie replies and notices with some detached interest that Sledge had inconspicuously slid closer to where Snafu is sitting while he and Bill had been occupied with the story. 

‘ _..impossible, should be, not sure if this is some elaborate prank, but cannot exactly deny what I saw with my own eyes, Snafu was a girl, that must feel really fucked up, he looks exhausted’._

Burgie was surprised by Bill’s sympathy for Snafu. He knew Bill was a good man and a lot more perceptive than Snafu ever gave him credit for, but he could sense there was some underlying respect there that has never been present in any of the interactions between the rifleman and the Cajun, at least not that Burgie had noticed before.

Glancing over at Snafu once more, Burgie can see the tired sheen in his eyes and the strain on his face as he does his best not to let his exhaustion shine through for Sledge to see, who was now kneeling next to him with a hand on Snafu’s shoulder to support him, silently communicating.

It was more difficult to distinguish their thoughts when they were in so close proximity to each other, but Burgie notices with confusion and curiosity that Snafu's sounds louder and clearer than both Bill’s and Sledge’s do.

_‘I failed him, supposed to have been protecting him, but how was I supposed to know, I did what was I thought was best, never imagined that he would be this shaken up about something I did, but he looked so peaceful sleeping there, there was no room for me with him, I did what was best for both of us’._

It feels too private, and once again like so many times in the past few days, Burgie couldn’t help the feeling that he is betraying Snafu’s trust. Even though he already knew that there was a whole lot more to Snafu than first met the eye, he had never been this acutely aware just how much more there is, and he had never before known there was so much anxiety and insecurity so close underneath the surface.

As if sensing Burgie’s concern, Snafu turns his attention away from Sledge to meet his eye. He blinks at Burge slowly and a bit uncomprehending before understanding dawns on his face and he looks away from all of them with a scowl.

“Mind if we stay the night, Bill?” Sledge asks with a hand still on Snafu’s shoulder as he addresses Bill, clearly having sensed that something was going on with the Cajun from the way he was firmly holding onto him, maybe even feeling responsible judging from how his thoughts were blaming himself for overreacting earlier, “We can go find somewhere else if –,”

“Nah, don’t bother, ya won’t find anything up to your standard in this neighbourhood, Gene. Besides, it doesn’t look like yo’ boy on the floor there will be able to move very far.” Bill gestures to Snafu who half-heatedly glares in his direction. “Ya alright there, Shit n’ Ass?”

“Fuck you.”

“Alright, I think we’re all in need for some much-needed rest. How’bout ya show us where we will be sleepin’ then, yeah?” Burgie says, effectively breaking up the fight before it can properly start up again.

It does not take long for Bill to procure extra blankets for Burgie and Snafu who are assigned the sofa and plush armchair in the living room, while Eugene shares Bill’s double bed.

“Don’t get jealous now, Snafu,” Bill winks at Snafu while Eugene is getting ready for bed in Bill’s room.

Snafu huffs at him from where he is curled up and sulking in the arm chair, having lost the rights to the couch in a fair game of rock, paper, scissors with Burgie even though he kept insisting Burgie had cheated by reading his mind which he definitely _hadn’t_ , “Don’ know what ya expect me to be jealous of here, Leyden... Sledgehamma’ not getting any sleep while you snore like a goddamn freight train?”

Burgie took an unusual comfort in the mostly harmless jabs and remarks that the two men had been passing back and forth between them, thinking that if Snafu could banter with Bill then he couldn’t be all that bad.

Eventually Burgie commands everyone to bed anyway, fully aware that there was a lot more that they would need to discuss the oncoming day, hopefully with Jay also present to shed some light of what was happening with him as well and if he had encountered these mystical men Sledge had talked about.

It was yet undecided how much they should disclose to Bill, having only told his own side of the story so far, the other two obviously being too shaken up about the whole thing to speak about it to anyone else in detail. And no wonder, really. He had heard them both think about it, knew that they both had experienced something severely traumatic compared to him when he had discovered his newfound powers. He didn’t even know the details, had only heard the fearful, stray thought from Sledge about having seen Snafu suffocate, or Snafu thinking about when he had woken up from a body-altering metamorphosis and the disgust and terror that had accompanied it.

Burgie lies awake for a long time reflecting on the past days and his comrades, not allowing himself to sleep before he hears Snafu’s thoughts quiet into a low murmur which he starting to learn indicated a light doze.

It is a small comfort when Snafu’s breath evens out, knowing that at least he was sleeping. Even back on the train he had gotten the impression Snafu wasn’t really getting rest, the dark circles underneath his eyes only becoming more prominent as the day had went on.

At least turning back into a boy seemed to have exhausted him enough to give him some peace of mind, or maybe it was just relief and all the stress finally leaving him that allowed Snafu to finally rest properly, curled up in the plush armchair and buried underneath a small mountain of blankets and quilts.

Burgie listens to Snafu’s breaths for a while before the soft snores of Bill also starts sounding through the apartment, and Burgie forces himself to close his eyes and rest too, knowing that there would be so many questions to answer in the morning, so much they needed to discuss when Jay turned up.

At least they were somewhat safe for now and as he listened to his old comrades’ soft noises he feels himself slipping into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

It only feels like minutes later when he stirs back into the land of the living due to the sound of faint music in the distance, and if possible Burgie feels even more tired than he did yesterday. He lays still listening to the radio for a moment, letting the baritone of the vocalist wash over him along with the easy jazz accompanying it.

So, Snafu was hogging the radio by the sounds of it.

Burgie blinks open his eyes, and it takes him a second to adjust to the grey light pouring in through the windows. The weather was still awful, the heavy rain pounding against the glass sends an unpleasant shudder down Burgie’s spine as memories of Gloucester looms at the edges of his mind.

“Look who’s finally wake.”

The deep, drawling voice pulls him away from that edge where he was about to delve too deep into awful memories, and he turns his attention to the person lounging leisurely in the armchair only an arm’s reach away.

“Mornin’, Snaf,” Burgie says and pushes himself upright, rubbing at the sand in his eyes, “Did ya sleep alright?”

Snafu shrugs noncommittally, the motion making the blanket he had wrapped around himself slip from his shoulders and expose his bare chest. It doesn’t strike Burgie as anything out of usual as he had seen the man shirtless plenty of times, but Snafu’s reaction is something that give him pause as Snafu’s hand shoots down quicker than a viper to catch the falling material and quickly cover himself.

They both stare at each other for a moment, Snafu seemingly equally surprised by his own actions as Burgie.

Snafu clears his throat awkwardly, “Yeah, I slept okay,” he says, and pushes the blanket down back into his lap, once again exposing his naked upper body. Burgie doesn’t need to look at his hunched shoulders to know how uncomfortable he was, his mental commentary was more than insight enough.

“How are ya feelin’?” Burgie asks to let the matter drop, knowing Snafu won’t appreciate him digging around his head anymore than Burgie liked to listen to his friend struggle.

“Fine,” Snafu bites and crosses his arms across his chest, tense, uncomfortable and defiant all at once. It was a blatant lie, they both knew, but Burgie wondered why Snafu didn’t seem to be doing any better now that he was changed back. He had seemed so relieved last night, and despite his ability to hear Snafu’s thoughts, Burgie wasn’t able to understand why he was so closed off again today.  

These were things that seemed a lot easier to ask Snafu when he had been stuck looking like a girl, his then softer features having seemed more inviting and receptible to sympathy than the sharper angles of his real face. Burgie feels guilty for even thinking that but cannot bring himself to push Snafu further with any questions about it.

“Sledgehamma’ and Leyden went out to get some grub if ya’re wonderin’,” Snafu mutters as he plays with the loose threads of the blanket pooling in his lap, intently focused on pulling on one particular wayward string rather than meeting Burgie’s eyes.

“Oh,” Burgie says intelligently, feeling slightly uncomfortable himself, which was new around Snafu who he had always had such an easy and comfortable friendship with. “How come ya didn’t join ’em?”

Snafu shrugs as he continues fiddling with the loose threads before giving in to the urge and draping the blanket across his shoulders and concealing his torso once again with a sigh, “Didn’t feel like it, I guess.”

“Fair enough.”

There is a brief moment where they don’t speak to each other before Snafu continues a bit jokingly, obviously trying brush off whatever was bothering him and make things more light-hearted, “Besides, someone had ta stick around for when you finally got enough beauty rest. Didn’t want ya thinkin’ we had all magically vanished into thin air all of'a sudden or some shit like that.”

“Shelton,” Burgie starts emphatically, but Snafu cuts him off before he gets the chance to get another word out.

“Don’t.” It is the kind of assertive tone Burgie had only heard Snafu use a handful of times during the time they’d known each other, and it had never been directed at him before. “There ain’t nothin’ ta talk about. I’m a guy again, and I plan on stayin’ that way, alright?”

Burgie sighs and lets the matter drop. They sit in silence for a little while, and Snafu eventually procures a packet of cigarettes from his jeans on the floor and lights one before silently handing one over to Burgie who accepts the peace-offering it without a word.

“So, what is the plan for the day, just stick ‘round and wait for Jay to turn up?” Snafu asks around the cigarette dangling from his lips and twists around in his chair, so his long, bare legs are dangling over the arms of one side.

“Yeah, I think that’d be best. To make sure he catches us and everythin’. His sense of direction ain’t exactly as terrible as yours,” Snafu makes a sound of protests at this but Burgie continues as if Snafu wasn’t making rude gestures at him, “but New York and Brooklyn are big areas, it’d be impossible to find us if we leave now.”

Snafu hums thoughtfully, his legs swinging restlessly back and forth over the edge like a child’s, “What do we tell him?”

The sound of the front door being kicked open and banging loudly against the walls stops Burgie from answering, and he twists around on the couch to see Bill and Sledge, both fully dressed, rushing in with soaked umbrellas, brown paper bags and mugs that smells delicious.

“Got ya some coffee, Mary,” Bill declares cheerily as he dumps the food and drinks onto the small, rickety coffee table positioned in the centre of the living room furniture Burgie and Snafu had occupied overnight.

Mary had been one of the nicknames Bill and a few brave other men had adopted for Snafu during their time in the Pacific after Jay accidentally revealed some stories from boot camp and a particularly nasty drill sergeant, and though it had always been an annoyance to Snafu back then Burgie had never seen the other man flinch at its’ use until now.

Bill seems oblivious to the reaction as he chatters on about their trip to the store a few blocks down the street but Burgie’s focus is only at how Sledge’s fingers linger over Snafu’s as he hands him his coffee, an ‘ _I am sorry’_ echoing between them.

Now, Burgie must have been blind if he hadn’t noticed before now the careful touches and the looks. It had become particular obvious in Peking when they no longer were in an active war zone to distract him from it, and he had half a mind to reprimand them and tell them to be careful then. The worst part was that they thought they were being _subtle_. It was miracle that they hadn’t been called out on it or had to face the court martial.

Sledge hands Burgie his coffee, lacking the same care but is still accompanied by the tired, gentle smile. It didn’t look like Sledge had caught much sleep that night if the dark lines underneath his eyes were any indication.

They eat in silence. Or relative silence as Burgie’s ears are echoing with thoughts and worries from the other guys. He does his best to tune them out, though he finds they do not feel as intrusive or headache-inducing as the thoughts from strangers, for which he is thankful.

The morning pass by quickly, and when afternoon rolls around Burgie finds himself sitting at a rickety kitchen table playing cards with Bill while Sledge has taken Snafu’s seat in the arm chair with a book open in his lap. Snafu has relocated to the window, perched on its’ sill as he stares emptily on the rain pouring down outside with a cigarette forgotten and burned down to its’ filter between his fingers.   

“Ha! Beat that,” Bill says and shows his cards to Burgie who sighs, having lost to the rifleman once again. It really was not as fun without Jay and Snafu in the game to make things interesting. Jay would always try to cheat with various degrees of success if he managed to stop giggling about it, while Snafu was just a whizz at poker or any card game in general. It was good to be around Bill though as the man spoke his mind and his thoughts wasn’t quite as clouded with emotion like Snafu or Sledge’s. It was a small, but welcome relief.

“Y’know, I would’ve thought you’d be better at this with your mindreadin’ powers or whatever,” Bill says around the cigarette in his mouth as he shuffles the deck again, snapping Burgie out of his thoughts.

Burgie smiles, though it doesn’t feel like it sits quite right on his face, “Guess you could say I’m a bit distracted.”

There is a consenting hum from Bill as he deals them a new round of cards, “Yeah, I can imagine. Sounds like you guys had a bit of a rough few days.”

“I suppose,” Burgie says and picks up his cards, quietly cursing to himself at the shit hand he had been dealt. He glances over at Bill who is smirking down at his cards, and it strikes him how at ease he seems with all of this. Not at all like Sledge who had denied it until he was practically blue in the face.

“You’re taking all this surprisingly well,” Burgie comments offhandedly as he puts down a spare three on the table.

“Well… ’s kind’a hard to deny somethin’ when the evidence is about to punch ya in your face.” Bill glances over at Snafu who is staring out of the window and appears completely unaware of their conversation, though Burgie has a feeling that he is listening to everything they are saying. “Say, why do ya think you got your powers, like the specific ones? Why can you read minds and Snafu was like… that.”

Burgie shrugs, “I honestly don’t know. It all seems pretty random to me.”

“Oh, c’mon, Burgie, ya can’t honestly believe that,” Bill says and slaps a card carelessly onto the table, “You gettin’ mind-reading powers and Gene getting the ability to turn back time or whatever ain’t just pure chance. It suits ya both perfectly. Gene is always wanting to save everyone, and then there is you who are too goddamn insightful and knowing for ya’ own good.”

Burgie frowns thoughtfully at Bill’s reasoning, thinking that maybe the man was onto something, but before he can respond to Bill’s comment he is interrupted by an annoyed snort from across the room.

“So how do ya explain me then, Leyden? I’m dyin’ ta hear how ya’re going’ ta justify tha’ one,” Snafu growls though he doesn’t get up from his seat, so that is at least a good sign that Burgie didn’t have to intervene quite yet.      

“I have to admit I’m still strugglin’ to explain that one,” Bills says and rubs his chin, before a gleeful smirk spreads across his face again, “Though ya always struck me as kind of a nancy with the way you kept leering at us replacement, so –,”

“Bill, that is enough.”

Sledge’s tone is unusually sharp and cuts across the room like a knife, causing everyone to lapse into silence as they look at Sledge in various degrees of surprise. Particularly Bill who had not been present in the later parts of their stationing on Okinawa and seen Sledge when he had been sliding down a slippery slope of anger.

Sledge’s thoughts are more a mix of fear and worry echoing in Burgie’s ears, betraying the sharpness in his voice, _‘why would he say that, does Bill know something, Merriell why do you ask such things when you don’t want to hear the answer, setting yourself up to be hurt, does Bill think that about me too, does he know’._

Getting over his surprise, Bill throws the rest of his card down onto the table, wordlessly resigning as he lights another cigarette. “Whatever. I am bored of sitting around all day. When was Jay going to get here?”

Taking the small offering of changing the subject, Sledge eases back into the chair, “Cannot say for sure. He said he’d be here as soon as he could, but it’s a long way from the west coast to New York.”

“So, you’re sayin’ he might not arrive today at all,” Bill states simply and Burgie watches him move over to the fridge and inspect the contents inside.

“I don’t know. It’s really impossible to tell,” Sledge replies. 

Burgie feels a sense of unease at this. The uncertainty that comes with Jay’s absence is making him worried and restless as it means that he couldn’t possibly know whether Jay was safe, captured or even dead. God, he hoped he was safe and on his way, Burgie didn’t know what he’d do if he wasn’t.   

“Screw this, let’s do something fun,” Bill says and slams the fridge door shut, the sound of glass clinking together making Burgie look up to see the beer bottles in his hand, “You guys need to seriously loosen up and get those frowns off your faces. And, in my experience, there isn’t any problem that can’t be solved by getting really, really drunk,”

“I don’t think that is such a good idea…” Burgie says reluctantly as Bill pushes the cold bottle into his hand, condensation already running down the beer’s sides and dampening his palms.

Bill snorts at this as he hands the second beer to Sledge, “Oh relax, Sergeant. One beer won’t hurt ya, might even do ya some good, take your mind off’a things.”

Burgie cannot really argue with that logic. He hadn’t really had any real downtime since before all of this started happening, and the chilled beverage in his hand is definitely tempting… before he even knew he had given into the decision, he has taken a cautious sip, the fizziness tickling his nose as the beer slides down his throat. It was heaven.

“Nah, ’m good,” Burgie hear Snafu mutter absently as Bill attempts to offer him a beer.

Bill seems to take this as a direct insult to his personal integrity, or possibly just a chance to poke the bear that is Snafu some more, as he appears to look scandalized, “You, not drink? Snaf, I know we never really had the opportunity to share one before now, but I’ve heard the stories. I know whatcha got up to in Melbourne. Don’t tell me all those rumours were lies. Oh, say it ain’t so! Honestly, you sure you’re feelin’ alright? Have ya double-checked if your balls grew back after last night? ’Cause they seem to be lackin’.”

It was pretty clear from the flash in Snafu’s eyes when Bill overstepped his boundaries, but Burgie could hear everything going on in his head as well and almost felt bad for not stepping in and stopping Bill from opening his big mouth, _‘fucking asshole, yes I checked but it is not like I would tell you of all people, asshole-asshole-asshole, cannot tell him it is because the last time I drank was when I changed, does not need to give him that ammunition on top of everything else, fuck what if I drink again I change back what if that somehow triggers it’_.

Really, how insecure was Snafu beneath all the self-assurance and tough attitude? How had Burgie never been aware of it before he was cursed with these damn powers?

Snafu’s expression twists into a dangerous grin that does nothing to betray the stream of doubt and insecurity below the surface, “Y’know, why don’tcha drink for the both’a us and see if your balls are still attached in the mornin’, yeah?”

“C’mon Snafu, what has your panties in such a bunch?” Bill laugh as he edges Snafu on, “You on the rag or somethin’? Is that why you won’t drink, ’cause your little tummy hurts?”

Burgie shares an anxious look with Sledge as the atmosphere in the room seem to drop by several degrees as the two men stare each other down. Strangely enough it had never gotten proper physical between them in the past despite all the verbal insults and jabs, and Burgie prays that track record was not about to be broken because Bill hit a particularly sensitive nerve.

“Fine!” Snafu exclaims after another tense moment and snatches the beer from Bill’s hand, taking a large gulp to Bill’s obvious glee, before he glares him directly in the eye over the bottleneck as he growls, “Just know I am holding your balls personally accountable if I wake up tomorrow without mine.”

It only feels like a matter of hours before they finish off Bill’s impressive stock of beer, all of them lounging on in the living room chatting easily amongst themselves with the radio playing in the background when Burgie takes a look at the time.

The small clock sitting on the kitchen counter was ticking close to twenty-three-hundred, and Burgie could have sworn it was only moments ago that they had eaten a snack to substitute dinner. Where did the day go, and where the hell was Jay?

Burgie knew Sledge had said that Jay might not make it today due to the travelling distance, but he couldn’t help the feeling of continued unease that was crawling underneath his skin. Maybe he was worrying too much, Burgie tries to reason with himself. The worrying wasn’t anything new, Snafu had told him so on multiple occasions, but that knowledge did nothing to squash the mounding concern building in his mind.

“Burgie?” Sledge inquires from where he is sitting next to him. Judging by the careful frown on his face he must have been calling his name for some time now.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Burgie turns his attention back into the room, “Yeah?” he asks, and does his best to avoid Snafu’s searching eyes.

“You’ alright? You were kind of...absent for a second there,” Sledge asks hesitantly, obviously not quite sure how to approach him, _‘so unusual for him, never seen him act this way before, is it the mindreading that make him so distant’_.

Burgie frowns when he hears Sledge’s thoughts. Was it possible that the more insight he gets into other people’s heads, the more he becomes stuck in his own? Or was he just burdened with concern for Jay who hadn’t showed, and Snafu that seemed so adamant to suppress his own pain and fear about this whole ordeal?     

“’m just tired,” Burgie mutters as an excuse, glad that none of the other men were able to hear his thoughts and hear the lie in his words, “It’s been a long week.”

“Burgie, it’s Tuesday,” Bill points out from where he is lying on the floor spread-eagle. “Though I could use a night’s rest m’self.”

“Yeah, must be pretty exhausting ta look like that everyday,” Snafu snide at Bill, though the effect is ruined by the enormous yawn that follows.

Burgie thinks that turning back into a man must have taken its’ toll on Snafu, as it was unusual for him to be this tired. He had quickly curled back up into the armchair he had slept in the night before, his lids heavy only after a couple of beers.

All things considered, Snafu’s exhaustion wasn’t shocking. The transformation had looked like it had _hurt_ by the way his limbs and body seemed to elongate and expand, along with his tawny skin that must have stretched thin to fit over Snafu’s body size. Burgie wondered whether it had damaged Snafu’s bones in any way, if he could feel the change or if he had been too busy getting in Bill’s face to notice. In addition to all that, Snafu seemed to be dealing with a lot mentally and god knows Burgie was tired from the past days, he couldn’t imagine how Snafu was coping.

“Maybe we should try sleep some. The sooner tomorrow comes, the sooner Jay will be here.”   

No one bothers protesting and soon enough they were all back in their allocated sleeping spots. Laying on the couch, Burgie finds himself unable to sleep despite his exhaustion. It was very much like he night before but this time around his fear and stress seem amplified as Jay had failed to show up in Brooklyn.

Snafu wasn’t sleeping either, though they were both doing a pretty good job of pretending that the other was asleep, as if anxiety wasn’t what was keeping them both awake so late at night.

Eventually the smell of cigarette smoke fills the room, the scent of Camels being strangely comforting to Burgie who sighs into his pillow. He knew that if he asked, Snafu would offer him a cigarette too, but he was too exhausted to make himself move from his comfortable position.

A few more minutes ticks by before the sound of feet padding quietly across the floor resonates in the room, and Burgie hears Snafu greet the person with a soft murmur.

“Eugene is having nightmares and woke me up,” Bill's voice, equally as soft as Snafu's, says, “I didn’t want to disturb him, so I figured I might as well try to sleep out here with you guys.”

There is a brief silence, and Burgie doesn’t need to see Snafu to know there is a worried frown on his face.

“Maybe you’re able to calm him, you guys used to share a foxhole, so he might find your presence calming or some shit like that,” Bill says, his voice muffled as he steals the last bit of Snafu's smoke.

Burgie honestly didn’t get the two of them. He supposed they shared some kind of strange respect for each other, a deeper understanding perhaps, since they were able to rip so easily into the other at any given moment but was also able to share peaceful moments like this without any resentment or animosity.

There is another moment of silence before Snafu gets up and pads out of the living room, his thoughts only focused on Sledge as he drifts past Burgie, quiet like a ghost.

“I know you’re not asleep,” Bill says and takes Snafu spot on the armchair, taking a long drag of Snafu’s Camel.

“Well, it’s kinda hard when you guys never shut up. It’s amazing we survived a war considering all the noise the two of you make.”

Bill only huffs an amused laugh as he grinds the rest of the cigarette out in the ashtray. 

…

Snafu sneaks into the Leyden’s bedroom, following the sounds of the pitiful whines to orient himself through the darkness before his eyes adjust enough to see the faint outline of Eugene laying atop of the mattress.

Approaching the bed carefully, Snafu crouches down so he’s eye-level with Eugene. The sight of him makes Snafu's heart clench painfully as he sees Eugene tangled up in the sheets, his hair sweaty and plastered to his forehead while his face is twisted into a distressed grimace.

Leyden had said that Snafu might be able to calm him, but he wasn’t exactly sure what Leyden expected him to do. He had never seen Eugene like this before, so obviously troubled by the demons he’d brought with him from the Pacific. Snafu chews at his lip thoughtfully, hoping Leyden was right that Eugene would find Snafu’s presence comforting.

Eugene makes another noise that sounds much like a wounded animal, and Snafu feels his heart protest once again, screaming at him to do something to ease Eugene's mind of his nightmare.

“Gene,” he whispers quietly, placing a gentle hand on Sledge’s wrist. He feels his erratic pulse jumping underneath his fingertips and he gives the fragile bones a firm squeeze, hoping it was enough to wake him up gently.

It works, though not exactly like Snafu had imaged it.

In one moment, he is crouched on the floor then the next Eugene grabs hold of him and flips him over onto the bed with Eugene on top and straddling his hips. Eugene’s eyes are hollow and empty as he stares down at Snafu who is trapped underneath the other man’s weight.

“Eugene, ’s okay. You’re safe,” Snafu reassures him, doing his best to keep his voice level and calm so he does not set Eugene off in this disoriented state that he was in, “I’ve got ya, ain’t no Nips ‘ere.”

Eugene blinks slowly, his eyes gradually filling with recognition as he comes back to himself. He must still a bit out of it though, Snafu thinks, as Eugene strokes a hand down Snafu’s face as if to confirm it is really him.

“Merriell” he says, his voice filling with tenderness before it shifts to dread as he realises what had just happened, “Oh my god, did I hurt you?”

His hands travel all over Snafu’s body, stroking across his bare chest, down his arms and over his ribs before they settle on his waist and Eugene heaves a relieved exhale as if he had worried he had injured him somehow.

“Y'okay?” Snafu chokes out, doing his best to distract himself from the fact they were laying half-naked in a bed and that Eugene had yet to removed himself from atop of him or his hands from his waist.

Eugene leans forward so their noses are only inches apart, a tired but amused smile playing on his lips as he whispers into Snafu’s ear, “I should be the one askin’ you that, don’tcha think?”

Something twitches in the pit of his lower abdomen and Snafu feels the entirety of his body shudder in response as a sudden, intense heat runs over him, as if someone’s dropped hot coals over him. The agonizing burning sensation lasts only for a moment, but in the brief moment his chest feels unusually tight and his bones ache as if the cold has seeped into his very core.    

Maybe it is some kind of intrinsic understanding of what that sensation had meant, or maybe it is just the look on Eugene’s face that was telling Snafu what had just happened. Either way, it was enough to shock them both as they lay there stunned, and oh so very close but also suddenly so very far away, before Snafu collects himself enough to push Eugene off of him and cover himself.  

“Merriell,” Snafu barely hears Eugene call after him as he shuts himself in the adjoined bathroom. Shame and embarrassment rushes through his whole body, making him deaf to anything else around him.

These emotions are only amplified when he turns around and is confronted with his own reflection. It is strangely reminiscent of when he had woken up the very first time like this, but now there was no shirt to conceal the new, soft tissue on his chest or the dainty waist sitting atop widened feminine hips.

Snafu has to screw his eyes shut and turn away as bile rise in his throat when he sees the unrecognisable half-naked girl staring at him through the mirror.

Sitting down on the cold tiles, Snafu curls up on himself so he no longer has to look at this person, this unfamiliar body. He feels strangely like crying, which is also new for him, but there was simply no way he was going to degrade himself any further like that, so he scrubs at his eyes to force the tears back and only allows himself a pitiful sniff of his runny nose. He wasn’t a fucking girl and there was no way he was going to start weeping over this as if he was one.

A quiet knock on the door makes Snafu jump.

“Leave me alone!” He demands, hating the sound of the strong, feminine voice that rolls off his tongue and resonates between the bathroom’s walls.

Eugene pokes his head through a small gap in the door regardless, only glancing at Snafu briefly before giving him the good grace to look away as he clears his throat awkwardly. “I brought you a shirt. If you want it.”

A white, crisply pressed button-down is offered through the narrow door crack. It definitely wasn’t a shirt that belonged to Snafu who thinks it looks nicer and more expensive than any garment he has ever owned, including his Sunday attire. He isn’t exactly in a position to be worried about ruining Eugene’s clothes however, so Snafu accepts the shirt silently, if a bit hesitantly.

He puts it on in a hurry, cursing as some of the buttons snags on his hair and are being generally uncooperative when he tries to close the shirt, so his new shapes are no longer so obvious under the large material that is too long for him on the arms and body.

“Can I come in?”

Snafu really didn’t want Eugene to see him like this again. It feels almost worse than last time somehow, when Eugene hadn’t known it was him. Maybe it is because of what had just happened before, which reminded him heart-achingly of long nights spent together in Peking when they both had struggled to sleep. Eugene had been his rock back then, and the memories of those times makes him think that while he doesn’t want Eugene to see him, he desperately wants to take comfort in Eugene like he’d used to so he reluctantly agrees to let him inside.

Instant regret washes over him as Eugene pushes the door open and his eyes fall onto him, as if they are examining his entire being. Snafu cannot help but wonder what he is seeing, if he looks as pathetic as he feels where he is sitting on the floor, small and barely decent in an oversized shirt and unflattering briefs. Self-consciously, he tugs at the hem of the button-down, pulling it as far down his thighs as he is able to conceal as much of himself as possible.

“You alright?” Eugene asks, a worried frown knitting his brows together.

“Fucking dandy,” Snafu bites bitterly, wondering how many times people have asked him that in the last 48 hours or so. It must be a new record for him, as no one really cared to ask him how he was before. A lot didn’t dare to because they already thought he’d lost his mind to the war. Back then it had been funny, but now the possibility of him being crazy was suddenly very real to him. Maybe he finally was insane like everyone assumed he was. It wasn’t like he hadn’t entertained the idea often enough the past days.

There is a long silence as neither of them say anything. Snafu can feel Eugene’s imploring gaze on him, silently telling him that he was not going to let this go that easily. Maybe Eugene was crazy too. He must be to tolerate all of the pain Snafu had inflicted on him by leaving him on the train, all alone in the world just like the rest of them.

But Snafu owed it to Eugene to be honest. It was the least he could do after he saw how badly his quiet departure had affected Eugene.

“It’s just not fuckin’ fair,” Snafu sighs as he picks at his nails apprehensively, “Why do I have’ta be like this? I don’t want to have fuckin’ _powers_. I’d rather be a nobody than not being able to have control of my own body. It’s so fuckin’ messed up and I hate it, I hate this.” He gestures to his now girlish features. “I hate _her_.”

Eugene steadily regards him for another moment before taking a seat next to Snafu, shuffling close to him and carefully extracts some of the hair that had gotten stuck in the shirt collar when Snafu had put it on and tucks it behind Snafu’s ear.

“I’m sorry,” Eugene says, cupping Snafu’s face with the hand he had fixed his hair with. “That you have to go through this. I can’t imagine what this is like for you.”

Snafu feels terrible as he hears Eugene say these things. It should be Snafu apologizing for leaving Eugene, it should be him to say those simple yet so difficult words, to say he would take it back and redo it if he could – and how ironic wasn’t it that it had been Eugene who wound up with the time travelling powers because of this?

He voices none of these thoughts however, none of those words he desperately wants to say but knows aren’t good enough because he wasn’t good enough for Eugene. In fact, he doesn’t say anything at all as he only closes his eyes and turns into Eugene’s touch, allowing the man to pull him close and hold onto his smaller body.

It is comforting, and though it does nothing to alleviate the shame and disgust Snafu feels, the warmth of Eugene’s body and the safety of his arms wrapped around him is familiar enough to make Snafu’s eyes slip shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback is always greatly appreciated!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess it's been a while, huh? 
> 
> This chapter presented quite a challenge in terms of creating interesting plot and dialogue, and took me a lot longer to write than I'd like to admit. Thanks to Kay for reading through my very rough draft and listening to my crazy ideas! Love ya bud!

“Rise and shine, children! It is a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the birds are – woah, what happened here?”

The sound of Bill’s loud, chipper voice makes Eugene blink awake with bleary eyes, looking around himself disoriented. It was still fairly dark outside, indicating that it was still in the early hours of morning, and Eugene can barely see Bill’s silhouette standing in the doorway in the dim light of the hallway.   

“Well, certainly doesn't seem like he had any problem calming you down last night,” Bill remarks in a whisper while a smirk slowly grows on his face. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have disturbed you lovebirds.”

A displeased noise and an arm tightening around his waist make Eugene glance down to see a mass of dark curls fanned out over his chest. The curls were attached to the feminine figure laying partially atop of him who was wearing one his shirts that had hitched up during the night to reveal the soft, tawny skin of Snafu’s belly.   

His sleep-muddled mind recalls having carried Snafu back to bed after he had fallen asleep in Eugene’s arms on the bathroom floor hours earlier. Eugene had every intention of leaving Snafu to sleep by himself, wanting to give him that privacy and safety as he was obviously not in a good mental place at the moment, but Snafu had clung onto him and muttered at him sleepily to stay. The closeness and the feel of him had been so achingly familiar and comforting to Eugene that he had selfishly relented and curled up with Snafu’s smaller body underneath the covers. And truth be told, sleeping cuddled up to Snafu had been the best sleep he'd had in weeks.

He had been constantly plagued by nightmares; the whistling sounds of shells dropping around him that drowned out the screams of his comrades, the dark rivers of red that was just as likely to be Japanese as that of an American soldier, suffocating in a pool of soil, dirt and maggots as Snafu left him behind without looking back... for the first time since returning home to the state there had been none of that. No haunting images that had him waking screaming and restless in the middle of the night. It had been the best night of sleep Eugene could remember ever having in his adult years.

Snafu, still oblivious to the world but as if sensing his spiralling thoughts, snuggles up closer to him by pressing his face into Eugene’s stomach, his long hair shifting with him and tickling Eugene’s bare chest and chin.

Eugene groans with envy as he mourns the loss of that pleasant, dreamless bliss.

“What do you want, Bill?” he asks a bit embarrassed and annoyed when he sees the gleeful smirk widen on Bill’s face even further.  

“I was just going to call you guys in for breakfast. Burgie made scrambled eggs with toast and coffee.”

“You could’ve at least knocked first, y’know. It’d be polite.”

“And miss this? Now, where’s the fun in that?”

“For Christ’s sake, it’s too early for this, Bill,” Eugene hisses while rubbing at the sand in his eye with the hand that isn’t trapped under Snafu’s body. “Fine. We’ll be out in a minute.” 

Bill, whose grin was now in full force, winks at him. “Good luck wakin’ up Sleeping Beauty there. Somethin’ tells me they’ll be cranky this mornin’.”  

“Thanks to you,” Eugene retorts but Bill has already escaped the room, leaving Eugene the task of waking up Snafu, who was not going to be happy with having his sleep disturbed. Especially when he’d find out that he hadn’t changed back overnight.

It had hurt Eugene to watch all that pain and shame roll off Snafu when he was sitting on the bathroom floor, looking so tiny where he’d curled up into a ball to hide himself as much as possible. The worst thing for Eugene was knowing there had been nothing he could do to help him, nothing beyond lamely offering him his shirt to cover himself with.

Eugene recalls sitting on the floor with an arm around Snafu while wondering what had set this off. In one moment, Snafu had seemed perfectly fine then the next his whole body had shrunk and shifted underneath Eugene’s weight while small, soft breasts had formed on his chest and his curls had sprouted from the top of his head. The process had been borderline grotesque to witness.

It was strange, he had thought, that each time he’d seen Snafu transform now the situations had been so utterly and completely different; the first time he’d been in life-threatening danger, then the next Bill had been acting like an insensitive asshole which came as a surprise to nobody, and then the most recent time they had been on the bed together. There was no denominator between those incidences that Eugene could think of, nothing specific that seemed to trigger the change in Snafu. Mind, he didn’t know what had caused the first change, but he wasn’t sure that him knowing would even help any with figuring out what made him shift between sexes. It was possible that the onset of the transformation was random, but for some reason that didn’t seem likely.

His own ‘ _powers_ ’ as everyone seemed to be referring to it as, had been triggered when they’d all been in life-threatening danger, when he was sure they were all going to die. He wasn’t even remotely certain he could even do it again. Maybe it had been a fluke, a one-time thing, or just an extremely ominous and vivid nightmare. Eugene still wasn’t entirely convinced this wasn’t just all a trick of his mind, because this was all completely insane, but he had resigned himself to this twisted and new reality. It couldn’t be all bad if Snafu had made his way back to him after all.

It would however be better for everyone involved if Snafu figured out a way to control his powers, particularly for Snafu who didn’t seem to be getting any more willing to accept his female body as time went on. Eugene couldn’t even pretend to understand it, but he would have thought Snafu would at least get used to it somewhat after the initial shock wore off. Maybe he had though. He hadn’t seen Snafu’s initial reaction to the change after all, only knew he had woken up like that Saturday morning, but Eugene suspected it had been nothing short of pure terror.

“Eugene?”

Snafu’s raspy voice is slurred from sleep, and Eugene can see his disorientation as Snafu lifts his head from Eugene’s stomach to look around them languidly before Snafu seems to freeze. It almost like Eugene was watching the pieces of a puzzle fall into place in Snafu’s head as the tired haze glazing his eyes lifts like a curtain to reveal the shame lingering from the night before.

Laying deathly still, Eugene waits for Snafu to push away from him when he notices their proximity, but Snafu only scrambles for the collar of his borrowed shirt with clumsy hands and glances down at himself, no doubt checking the state of himself. When he realises that he hadn’t changed back overnight, he collapses next to Eugene on the bed with a bone-weary groan of disappointment, effectively hiding his feminine facial features by shoving his face underneath a pillow.

“Morning?” Eugene tries hesitantly, hoping that Snafu wasn’t going to be biting his head off now that he was in such an obvious bad mood.

“Not a good one if ya ask me,” Snafu responds, the words muffled and distorted by the pillow. It couldn’t possibly be comfortable, and Eugene wasn’t liking how the man was so adamant on evading him even now when they were sharing a bed.

“Hey,” Eugene says, gently tugging at the fabric covering Snafu’s face. “Ya don’t have to hide from me, y’know.”

“Who says it’s you ’m hidin’ from,” Snafu mutters petulantly but does not resist Eugene when he removes the pillow from his face. The statement is about as much of an admission of Snafu’s current emotional state that Eugene was going to get, and while he desperately wants to pry more information out of Snafu he knows the man will shut down completely if he tries.

“Bill called us in for breakfast. Said Burgie made some eggs ‘nd coffee,” he says to drop the subject, and observes Snafu make a displeased noise and drop his head back down onto Eugene’s stomach now that his pillow had been confiscated.

“He came in ‘ere and saw us together, didn’t he?” Snafu asks, twisting his long, dark locks around delicate fingers. “Goddammit, he ain’t ever goin’ta let me live this down.”

Eugene frowns in confusion, not sure what Snafu was saying, “Live what down?”         

“Aww, Genie, y’re too sweet and innocent fo’ you’ own damn good sometimes,” Snafu coos mockingly and pats him on the chest. “If ya ain’t gettin’ it by now, I ain’t gonna be the one ta explain it to ya.”

Eugene stares at Snafu uncomprehendingly for about a second before the implications dawn on him and he feels his face heat up. Snafu had always been incredibly crude in the past; always leering at the replacements, making suggestive comments that made most men squirm uncomfortably, always talking about his pecker. But never in the past had Eugene found himself to become to blatantly self-conscious around Snafu before.

Maybe it was because things were different now.

Eugene wanted to blame the fact that Snafu outwardly looked like a woman, but he suspected it had more to do with the fact that their situation was different. It no longer felt like the two of them were the only people on the planet like when they’d shared their small foxhole whispering stories, sharing their fears. There were other people now too. Other people they should be interested in, other people they could take out to dance, other people that should know as much about Eugene as Snafu did.

Yet, the concept of ‘other people’ seemed so absurd to Eugene where he lays next to Snafu in that moment, no matter what the man outwardly appeared like. Because no matter what, it wasn’t like this was not his Merriell still, right? 

Snafu snorts humourlessly when Eugene fails to respond, completely lost in his own thoughts, and gives Eugene a final pat on the chest. “Suppose it’s time ta face the music then, yeah?”

Burgie and Bill are already sitting by the rickety living room table when Eugene trails after Snafu into the room, feeling strangely like he’d been caught doing something dirty by the way awkward silence lingers in the air as they enter.

It only belatedly occurs to him that it is maybe not him the strange silence is reserved for as Snafu quickly shuffles by the table and over to the chair where his pants had been dropped in an unceremonious heap on the floor. Without a word, Snafu pulls them on in a hurry, and Eugene acts like he does not to notice how badly they fit as he takes a seat next to Burgie on the couch.  

“Mornin’ Sledge,” Burgie greets him eventually and takes a long sip of his coffee, pretending he hadn’t just stared at Snafu for the longest while in some sort of deep trance.

Maybe he was listening in one what was on Snafu’s mind in that moment, and the suspicion makes Eugene kind of wish he was the one with mind-reading powers. All of a sudden it seemed like Burgie seemed to know Snafu so much better than him, that they seemed so much closer than Eugene was to Snafu all because Burgie was so attuned to Snafu's thoughts and emotions.

Eugene was fully aware that Burgie and Snafu had known each other for longer. When they’d been over there however, Burgie had seemed so intent on his position as their superior officer that Eugene sometimes forgot that Burgie, Snafu and Jay had all went to bootcamp and Gloucester together and formed a close friendship then.

Burgie raises his eyebrows at him inquisitively, and Eugene feels himself blush for the second time that day as he realises the sergeant must have heard his thoughts too.

“Mornin’,” he returns to Burgie before he clears his throat awkwardly and takes a piece of toast from the table that he shoves into his mouth, hoping that the man will not confront him on his ridiculous bitterness.

Thankfully, Burgie is big enough of a man to just return to his coffee, silently handing another cup to Snafu who accepts it with a grateful quirk of his mouth that isn’t quite a smile as he takes a seat on the floor opposite the couch.

The silence that follows as they help themselves to the eggs and toast on the table signifies the early hour of the morning. Eugene cannot help but wonder what time it was and why Bill and Burgie had deemed it fit to disrupt the best sleep he’d had in months.

The food is good though and Eugene thinks that the pick of meal kind of fitted the sergeant perfectly; nice, simple and proper.

An amused snort from next to him is the only indication that Burgie had heard him, but before he can comment on it, Snafu’s voice is the one that interrupts the easy quiet of their breakfast.

“Would’ya stop starin’ at me.” He glares in Bill’s direction with a scowl, his face partially obscured by his long, untameable mane of hair that is draped like a protective curtain over half of his facial features.     

“Oh, I ain’t starin’,” Bill protests and smiles disarmingly, which could mean nothing good. “I was just thinkin’ that you’d make a pretty cute girl if you just smiled for once in your fuckin’ life.”

Eugene was pretty sure he’d never seen that particular angry colour on Snafu’s face before as he slams his coffee mug down on the table with a bang, “Fuck you, Leyden!”

There’s an audible, tired sigh from Burgie, who set down his own mug carefully and looks like he is visibly composing himself as the fight was starting to unfold.

Bill shrugs carelessly, seemingly unperturbed by Snafu’s outburst. “You’re just easier on the eyes when you’re a girl, y’know what I’m saying?”

“And you’d be easier on the eyes if you were dead, y’know what I’m saying?” Snafu snaps, his eyes glinting dangerously. The half-crazed smirk on his face wasn’t anything less intimidating when he was like this, Eugene thinks. In fact, it was almost scarier, because Snafu was already emotionally compromised because of his situation and was probably searching for options to channel that fear and frustration. Bill was only making himself a bigger target.

“Boys,” Burgie interrupts them sternly as if he was reprimanding children, and Eugene has to admit he is pretty impressed how easily the man can command the room and make the two headstrong men back down by using only a single word.

“Whatever, I have to get to work,” Bill says and brushes the crumbs on his hands off on his jeans.

Snafu slaps a hand over his eyes and curses loudly, “Oh shit, work! I’d completely forgotten. I’mma be fired for sure, I’ve not been in for days without any notice.”

No one bothers to ask how Snafu had forgotten to notify his work that he’d be gone for a few days, knowing fully well that the man had other priorities and worries.  

“Hey, Leyden. D’ya have a phone? Gotta call the foreman and give him some sort’a lame excuse about deadly illnesses or somethin’ and pray I still got a job to return to when I go home to New Orleans.”

“No, but there is a booth outside where you can do your grovellin’,” Bills says as he chips on his shoes. “C’mon, I’ll show ya.”

Both of them are out the door before Eugene really has time to cotton on to their conversation properly.

It baffled him, how they were capable of function well enough to work, how they managed to get up in the morning every day. How did they have the energy? How did they not cave into the overwhelming memories of war and death? Did they not need time to heal, or had they already done so?

Maybe they were all coping better than him. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to understand how well-functioning, contributing members of society got up every day and stop from isolating themselves completely. To him, some days isolation seemed like the only way to escape everyone, everything, including himself.

“You’re not givin’ yourself enough credit, Sledge. Everyone wants to take time to heal, but ain’t like everyone can afford to do so. Some people oughta work because they ain’t got any other options. When it comes to workin’, there’s a significant difference between those people who can’t, won’t, mustn’t and needn’t.”

Eugene glances inquisitively over at Burgie who takes a generous bite of his eggs as if he’d never spoken at all. What did he mean by that?

It sounded like something his Mother would tell him as a child, when he was too sickly to do much of anything but read his books, even though all he wanted was to go outside and play with the other boys. Actually, it sounded like something his Mother would tell him now, though her words would mean something different, would carry weary disappointment rather than tender worry. But she didn’t understand that he needed time. Time for what, he wasn’t exactly sure, but he knew he wasn’t ready to face the triviality of civilian life, to look those people who thought he’d done something heroic for his country in the eye when he was burdened by the guilt of having so much blood on his hands.

Burgie looks at him then, really looks at him, “You carry your scars better than anyone, Eugene, so why do you keep telling yourself that you are less worthy of a normal life than the rest of us?”

Eugene’s mouth becomes dry from the implications of Burgie’s words, and he feels suddenly stupid and self-centred by his own thoughts. Burgie was wrong though, Eugene wasn’t coping well, and certainly not better than any of the other guys. They didn’t wake up screaming every time they closed their eyes to sleep or were so exhausted and empty to do anything beyond sit around in their dressing gown all day.

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, Sledge,” Burgie says. He is silent for a long moment before he breathes out a stomach-deep sigh. “I can’t go out when the rain’s really bad no more. It terrifies me to the point where I feel like I can’t do anything. I can feel my heart in my throat when I have to go out into it. Reminds me too much of Gloucester I guess, takes me back there. I think I will get over it someday, maybe, I don’t know. The last few days have been really bad, but it helps havin’ you and Snaf and Bill ‘round. Keeps my mind in the right place.”

Burgie’s confession is surprising but something Eugene can definitely relate to. He would have never guessed the sergeant struggled with something like that though, as the man was always so calm and collected in any given situation. Eugene supposed Burgie intended for his words to be comforting, but instead it almost made Eugene feel worse knowing that Burgie was having as much as a hard time as he was.

“I’m sorry,” Eugene says quietly as he stirs the untouched scrambled eggs around his plate self-consciously. He isn’t even sure what he is apologising for, but the words seemed necessary to get out there in the open space between them.  

“Don’t be,” Burgie replies. “You ain’t got nothin’ to apologise for. I’m not saying this to make you feel bad. I’m just tryin’ to tell ya that you’re not alone in this. I know we aren’t supposed to talk about this kind of shit as men and stuff, but I don’t agree that we all have to silently sit on all this garbage by ourselves either. Talkin’ stuff out is good for ya.”  

Eugene nods thoughtfully as he processes Burgie’s words. He was grateful for them, for the offer it was, and while he wasn’t ready to talk everything out quite yet, he promises himself he will take Burgie up on the offer at some point.

They lapse into a comfortable silence as they return to their breakfast, both thoughtful but the atmosphere between them is lighter than it’d had been the past few days. It was pleasant.

The peace is broken by the sound of someone knocking on the door, making them both jump and share a look of surprise before Burgie’s expression morphs into one of relief and he rushes over to the door.

Following him a bit more cautiously, still a bit wary from the meeting with the lieutenant only two days ago, Eugene peers over Burgie's shoulder when he opens the door to reveal a wide-eyed Jay De L'eau.

“Hi guys,” Jay greets them, his smile small and Eugene thinks he detects a hint of nervousness there. “How’ya been?”

“It’s good to see ya, Jay.” Burgie’s own smile is big and relieved as he envelops Jay in a hug and claps him heartily on the back. “Was gettin’ worried you’d never show up.”

Jay seems to relax somewhat and laughs lightly when Burgie releases him before he sees Eugene standing there behind Burgie awkwardly. “Hey Sledge.”

“Hi,” Eugene replies and smiles back at Jay with some effort, the happiness he was trying to emote not feeling quite genuine on his face.

It was strange to see Jay again after so long, after they’d all had experienced so much in Okinawa and Peking without him. For a while, it’d felt like he’d perished to the war like so many other men even if he’d only been transferred. His absence had left a hole in their small company, one that had been filled by replacements such as Hamm and Peck who hadn’t quite fit into the gentle mould of Jay De L'eau.

Standing there in the doorway now, breathing and rosy cheeked, he still managed to feel very much like a ghost haunting Eugene.      

Burgie invites Jay in and says something about breakfast but Eugene’s ears are filled with cotton as he’s mind was taunting him with memories from the past; of dead soldiers, both faceless and familiar ones that should never had died in that God forsaken place. It is only when Burgie gently nudges him with an elbow as he and Jay walks past that he is brought back to the present and he obediently trails after them back to their makeshift breakfast table.

“So where are the rest of the guys?” Jay asks as he takes a seat, his eyes roaming over the assortment of foods and drinks on the table hungrily.

“Bill just left for work,” Burgie says around a mouthful of food. “And you must’ve walked right past Snafu on your way up. He was just makin’ a phone call.”

As if summoned, the door swings open with a bang as Snafu bursts into the apartment, his face flushed and angry, “...should fuckin’ shoot him. Some fuckin’ asshole just cat-called me in the fuckin’ street, and – holy shit.”

Eugene watches as Jay and Snafu blink at each other uncertainly, almost like they’d not seen each other before, and it occurs to Eugene then that Jay certainly hadn’t seen Snafu before like this. To Jay, Snafu was probably just looking like some unfamiliar, outraged girl in boy clothes who had walked into the wrong apartment.

“Jay, that’s –,” Eugene starts, ready to launch into the long explanation he’d promised him over the phone.   

“Snafu.”

Apparently, Eugene couldn’t have been more wrong in all his assumptions as Jay walks over to where Snafu is standing frozen in the doorway, his posture wary as Jay’s frame hovers over his petite one.

“You’ alright, Jay?” Snafu says, all false bravado as his head is tilted upwards defensively to meet Jay’s searching gaze. 

Jay chuckles self-deprecatingly all of a sudden as he envelops Snafu in a hug and claps him on the back, much similar to the embrace Burgie had shared with him only moments earlier.

It surprises all of them; Burgie straightens in his seat, ready to intervene, and Eugene is already standing, not quite sure how Jay had recognised Snafu so easily. Snafu himself is standing there stiff as a board, his eyes filled with shock as they meet Eugene's own over Jay’s shoulder.

“Did someone tell you about –” Snafu starts hesitantly, almost as if he is afraid to ask the question in fear of what Jay might reply. “How…?”

“No one told me nothing.” Jay pulls away to consider Snafu carefully before he smiles that gentle, thoughtful smile only Jay seemed capable of as he says cheekily, “Just thought it was obvious, honestly.”

In a way, it made perfect sense that it’d be Jay to recognise Snafu. Jay had always been good at acknowledging and be aware of others, but Eugene couldn’t help but feel a bit envious of his particular talent now as he seemed to have recognised Snafu so easily when it'd taken Eugene considerably longer and a lot more convincing. In fact, if he hadn’t seen Snafu transform back and forth between sexes three times already, Eugene wasn’t sure he’d be convinced yet. 

Eugene feels another pang of jealousy when he sees Snafu return Jay’s smile. It's the first genuine smile Eugene had seen on his face since their little reunion four days ago, one that he hadn’t seen since that day on the train or maybe even before that. And it had been Jay who had brought that back, and as much as Eugene wants to be happy for Snafu, he finds himself wondering whether his presence was doing anything to help Snafu like Burgie and Jay’s seemed to be doing.

“You’re a strange man, Jay De L'eau,” Snafu snorts and cuffs Jay in the arm as he pushes past him to reclaim his seat on the floor. “What was it that made ya realise who I was? No one else’s known. They either had to cheat or have the evidences shoved in their faces.”

Eugene shuffles uncomfortably where he _’_ s standing, knowing exactly which one of Snafu’s comments was directed at him. It was deserved. He had after all denied it until he was blue in the face and hurt Snafu’s feelings considerably because of it.

A very small, angry part of him resentfully whispers in his ear that his crime paled in comparison to Snafu abandoning him on the train, but Eugene makes an effort to quash that insecure, mad part of him because Snafu had come back to him, no matter what circumstances it’d been under.

Besides, attempting to have a discussion about that now when he was so emotionally fragile would be borderline cruel and Eugene wasn’t willing to break this delicate peace between them.

“Your eyes, man,” Jay answers easily. “You were always such a hypochondriac; ‘look at mah eyes, Jay. They yello’?’” He says in a poor imitation of Snafu’s accent, making Burgie snort into his coffee mug in amusement and even made Eugene smile despite himself. 

Snafu takes a large bite of his toast before he replies with his mouth full in the most unladylike manner. “They could’ve been yello’, not like I could see mah own eyes to tell. Besides, look what happens when I ain’t worryin’. Turning into a fuckin’ girl ‘nd shit.”

“I don’t think there’s any technician on this side of the Pacific that could’ve predicted that would happened, Snaf,” Burgie comments offhandedly while Eugene reclaims his seat next to him on the couch. “Anyway, how did the call go?”

Snafu press his lips together, his easy smile fading into a scowl. “As fine as you’d expect. The foreman ain’t exactly happy ‘bout my vanishing act, but all of those shitheads I work with are a lazy bunch of assholes so ‘m bettin’ he’ll let me continue workin’ there once I get back.”

It is strange to think about Snafu returning to New Orleans after all this. Despite their lives having been turned on their head only a couple of days ago, the before already seemed like a lifetime ago to Eugene. Maybe he was being extremely cynical, but unless they managed to find a way to fix things, none of them was going to able to return to that life. Particularly Snafu, who wouldn’t be able to hold down a regular job unless he somehow managed to get control of the change. He couldn’t exactly stride into a lumberyard looking like a woman. No one would recognise him, no one would think it was appropriate for a girl to be in such a place. And how was he going to be able to settle down and start a family if he kept changing like he was doing now?    

“So what kind of excuse did’ya give him?” Eugene asks curiously, wondering how Snafu managed to talk himself out of that one, especially when his voice was so much lighter and distinctly female.

“That’d I’d come down with a bad case of pneumonia and that mah voice was shot, which was why I sounded so fucked. Had it enough’a times when I was little, so I know enough about it to fake it. Though, the bastard wouldn’t shut up ‘nd give me the time off before I told ‘im his shit wage wasn’t enough for me to afford drugs to treat it.” Snafu shrugs his thin shoulders carelessly, as he hadn’t just admitted to the poor state of his economy and health.

Eugene frowns, not quite liking how blasé Snafu was about the whole thing. The image of Snafu curled up in bed, burning up with a fever and struggling to breathe due to a chest infection, without any form of relief, made an unpleasant lump form in his throat. He forces the thought away from his mind however, not wanting Burgie to hear his guilt and worry more than he has already.

“So, Jay. Invisibility. Fo’ real?”

Jay seem to squirm in his seat as all their eyes land on him expectantly, almost like he wants to actually disappear by Snafu’s blunt statement. “I didn’t know any of you knew.”

Goddammit, Snafu. Jay had never gotten the chance to tell him about his little vanishing acts this time around during their phone call, since Eugene had been in such a state of panic that he had barely let Jay get a word in during their conversation. At the time, he had kept the information to the bare minimum, and only explained over the phone that they were experiencing some really strange things, and that he knew that something similar was happening to Jay too and could he please just come meet them for his own safety? It was a matter of life and death, but Eugene had promised to explain everything when he joined them.

Jay, though bewildered at the time, had agreed, and Eugene had belatedly realised afterwards when they’d finished the call that Jay actually never gotten to tell him about his vanishing problems this time around.

It definitely caused a lot awkwardness now.

“Gene’s words, not mine,” Snafu says and takes another healthy bite of his toast before shooting Eugene a winning smile stained by scrambled eggs when he notices the threatening glare Eugene shoots in his direction.

 “Oh.” Jay doesn’t seem upset with Eugene as he turns to him, only curious. “How did you know about that?” 

“I, uh.” Eugene isn’t sure how to start explaining something he didn’t quite understand himself. He still wasn’t sure what he’d seen; if it had been a nightmare, some ominous premonition, or if he had actually jumped back in time as the other guys kept saying he had done.

Burgie was better at this. He always managed to explain it in simple terms without sounding like he’d lost his marbles. He sounded believable and sincere and could even prove that he could read minds to some extent. Snafu couldn’t exactly hide his powers either, even if he tried. Eugene though, Eugene wasn’t even sure if he could do it again, because it might have been a fluke. In all honesty, he wasn’t even sure it’d happened in real life. 

By the expectant look on everyone’s faces it becomes obvious to him he’d spent too long fumbling for word and he feels himself flush and mutters a weak, “You told me.”

“I did?”

 _‘in a different timeline’_ his mind supplies unhelpfully, which probably sounds even more dumb if he were to voice it out loud. “It’s complicated,” he says lamely, wishing he’d prepared some better excuse or explanation so he didn’t look like such fool now.

Burgie seems to take some pity on him thankfully, easily interjecting with, “Strange stuff has happened to all of us, Jay. Sledge’s got an ability to travel in time or something akin to that, which is why he knew about your abilities – because you did tell him, but just not this time around.”

“Sledgehamma’ totally saved our asses with his crazy mumbo-jumbo too,” Snafu says and gives Eugene an appraising, warm look through half-lidded eyes, the small quirk of his lip softening his features.       

Eugene squirms in his seat, uncomfortable with the unexpected, sudden praise and that Burgie might have heard how his heart skipped a beat when Snafu looked at him like that. 

“I guess that makes sense,” Jay says, his eyes lingering on Snafu as well, though Eugene supposed for different reasons than his. While Jay had been able to see it had been Snafu, it was going to take some time for him to get accustomed to this version of him.

Hell, Eugene thinks he was never going to get used to it himself. When he’d woken up this morning he’d been surprised how soft Snafu had been against him. Snafu had always been all harsh, beautiful lines and angles which had dug into Eugene’s side when they’d shared a foxhole, so it’d been quite different to wake up to small, supple breasts pressed up against him and looking down to see a rounded, dainty face where Snafu’s usually distinct features appeared almost delicate.

“It really doesn’t Jay, but thanks for playin’,” Snafu says as he licks away some egg that he’d spilled in his palm, completely unaware of his rapt audience. “Now, show us. Become invisible.”

Jay blinks uncomprehendingly, as if in a stupor, before he is able to process Snafu’s words. “Oh. Uh, I don’t really know how to control it properly yet. It just kind of happens, though I found that there are certain… feelings that are associated with it.”

That’s interesting, Eugene thinks. He’d been trying to find reasons why Snafu had transformed when he had, but he’d looked at it all wrong and failed to consider internal factors such as emotions and feelings as Jay was pointing out now.   

“Really?”

“Yeah. Do you not have that, Snaf?”

“I wouldn’t be sitting here lookin’ like a bird if I did.” Snafu tugs at one of the long curls angrily with a thoughtful frown on his face.

“Wait, this is not a permanent thing for you, is it?” Jay asks concerned, his whole body fidgeting uncomfortably in his seat as if afraid he’d put his foot in it and touched upon a sore subject.

“No,” Snafu replies sullenly and tosses his long hair behind his shoulder. “At least I’ve changed back once – twice, now.” He glances sideways at Eugene as he says this. “I’m just not sure what causes it.”

“It took me several times to even realise that my emotions might have something to do with it. Seems very related to particular feelings I’m having and experience.”

Eugene consider Jay’s words carefully. What Jay was telling them made perfect sense. If Eugene thought about what had happened in the forest behind his house only two days ago, the panic and fear he’d felt as those soldiers had torn Snafu and Burgie away from him could very likely have been what had triggered his ability. It also made sense it’d cause Snafu’s, but Eugene couldn’t help but wonder what emotions had caused him to change last night. Fear? Anger?... Lust?

After he'd gotten over his initial panic, it’s how Eugene had felt. He’d felt that pleasant stir in his stomach as he towered over Snafu who was laying on the bed, trapped between Eugene’s thighs all pliant and sharp angles. Eugene remembered the feeling of his skin beneath his fingertips, the flat expanse of his chest, the wiry muscles of his arms. He could I’ve even sworn he’d felt Snafu’s –

There’s a loud, uncomfortable cough next to him, and Eugene feels his cheeks burn in shame for letting his mind wander when Burgie was sitting right there. Deliberately avoiding eye contact with the sergeant, Eugene shoves a good amount of scrambled eggs into his mouth, hoping it’ll be enough to dissuade Burgie from commenting upon what he'd just heard.

Snafu glance over at the two of them inquisitively, but Jay hasn’t seemed to notice the sudden awkward atmosphere as he’s keeps talking, “It’s kind of a relief to know I’m not alone in this though, y’know? For a while, I thought I was losing my mind.”  

“Do ya know what caused it for you?” Burgie asks and leans forward in his seat to look at Jay inquisitively.

Jay fidgets under Burgie’s gaze before he shrugs. “No idea. After Eugene kind of insinuated over the phone that something strange was happening to you guys too, then I thought it might have been something that happened while we were, y’know, over there.”

“But you weren’t in Peking,” Snafu states, as if it was a very important detail to Jay’s reasoning.

If Burgie hadn’t told him about his and Snafu’s theory during the train ride here while Snafu had been sleeping,- he would have no idea where they were going this line of questioning.

He still struggled to wrap his head around how thunderstorm could have caused this absurdity. It wasn’t even certain that it is what was the reason for their sudden unusual abilities, but like Burgie had said, there was nothing but the lighting strikes that had happened to all three of them that was out of the usual. It was the only clue they had at the moment.

“No, I wasn’t stationed there. Was sent straight back to America after V-day,” Jay replies.

Snafu huffs a sardonic laugh and flops onto his back on the floor, his arms folding behind his head as he says, “Well, there goes that theory. Ain’t no crazy-ass thunderstorms that’s caused this shit, I’m tellin’ ya Burgie.”

Eugene can see Burgie opens his mouth to reply in his peripheral before the man shuts his mouth with an audible click, his eyes darting over to Jay who is sitting there pale and wide-eyed.

“You think those storms are what caused this?” Jay asks lowly, his attention shifting between all of them individually.

“Those storms? You’ve had storms over here too?” Eugene asks when neither Snafu or Burgie say anything, both too occupied by staring at Jay in various degrees of surprise. 

“Yeah, it happened all over the country. Every newspaper wrote about it, saying it was like a national record of lightning strikes that day. Quite a few people reported being hit too, but no one seemed to have any lasting injuries from it.”

“And you were one of them.”

Jay nods quietly, pushing a shaking hand through his hair before it falls back over his forehead uselessly. “I didn’t think much about it at the time. It shook me up for sure, yeah, but I honestly thought it was just some sort of weird natural phenomena.”

Probably a whole lot of people thought that, particularly since it was so widespread. It even reached them all the way to China, so god knows the scope of this thing. But from what Jay was telling them, it sounded like there might be a lot more people affected. People who’d gone out in the news and told the public about this.

“If what you’re saying is right, then there could be many more experiencing what we are doing, so how come we’ve not heard anything about it?” Burgie muses out loud, and Eugene wondered whether he was intentionally voicing what everyone was thinking.

“D’ya think that’s what that Buchanan asshole is doin’? Goin’ ‘round silencing people and bringin’ ‘em in for some sort of fucked up human experimentation shit?” Snafu asks from his position on the floor, staring up into the ceiling with a scowl. 

“It ain’t the first time it’s happened,” Burgie answers darkly.

“Who’s Buchanan?”

There was appeared to be a lot they still needed to tell Jay about, it seemed like. They’d yet to properly tell him about the weird incidences they’ve been through so far. About what happened by the creek, their time in Peking, how this had all started for them when Burgie had supposedly heard his family’s old cow talk to him.

All in good time though, which Eugene realises is probably for the best. Jay looked like he was fairly overwhelmed by all of this already, and Eugene didn’t blame him. It was a lot to take in, and Eugene guesses that while Jay was prepared for some of the absurdity that had befallen them, he wasn’t ready for the scope of it.

“Lieutenant Buchanan is the man who is after us. Has a small army with him. Armed to the teeth.” It isn’t quite the explanation Eugene would have preferred to give, but it is ambiguous enough to not raise too many questions that would derail the conversation.

“Yeah, the guy Sledgehamma’ saved us from by usin’ his weird time powers,” Snafu supplies, and Jay nods in understanding. 

“And he takes people away? People affected like us?”

“Can’t say for sure, but it does appear so.” Eugene wasn’t exactly sure what Buchanan intended to do with them, but judging by the lieutenant’s offhand remark about a breeding farm, Snafu was probably pretty dead on the mark with his comment about human experimentation. The question remained whether the lieutenant was only after them or if there were others out there too, if it was indeed the lightning strikes that had caused this whole shit show.  

“That’s...” Jay starts before he freezes, his face paling drastically and makes Eugene share an anxious look with Snafu and Burgie.

“Jay are you alright?”

“There was a little kid in my neighbourhood, Sarah. She was about six years old, I think. A few days ago, when I’d gotten back from work, my mom told me that the whole street was in an uproar because someone claiming to be child services had gone to her house and taken her away. Her mom is a single mother and had worked hard to provide for her - they were happy.” Jay pauses to take a moment to compose himself, the deep breath he takes the only sound in the room as his audience listens with rapt attention to his story. “Child services however claimed the girl needed a more stable home and whisked her away. No one could do anything about it. The old lady who lives next door, Mrs. Thompson, said that the group of men had looked like no child services that she knew of. Said they carried guns and everything. No one’s heard anything from Sarah since then.”

There is a long, uncomfortable silence as they all process what Jay’s just told them. 

“They are takin’ kids too?” Snafu asks quietly. While Jay had told the story about the little girl, he’d pushed himself back into a seated position to hug his knees, something angry and distraught on his face. He always did have a soft spot for children. 

“But why did they take her? How can they know for sure she was affected?” Eugene wondered where they got this information from. Surely, they weren’t picking people at random?  

“Sarah was in the local newspaper as she’d been out playing during the storm. Her mom thought it was am easy, harmless way to earn some extra cash I guess as the newspapers were paying people a decent sum to publish stories about people getting hit during the hails of lightning.”

“That must be how they find ‘em. They might even be the ones that are behind the payments the papers are issuing out, for all we know. Saves ‘em a lot of work for sure,” Burgie says, his face strained with concentration. The coffee in his hands was long since forgotten and now probably freezing cold, which was a testament to how deep in thought the sergeant was. A rare scowl appears on his face then, as he says, “And we reported to the technician onsite when it happened to us in Peking, that’s how they knew of us. Who knows what other records of incidences there are – hospitals, school, orphanages, homes. It’s probably limitless. We are probably just small fish in a very big pond.”    

Eugene was feeling ill. If that was true, then how big was this whole thing? How many people were affected, and how had they not heard about people disappearing? Were the people who attacked Burgie, Snafu and Eugene covering up their tracks that well? Were these the same people who took Sarah away, or was it someone else?  

The cynical part of his brain wanted to argue against the whole thing, much like it’d done when Burgie and Snafu had turned up on his door. Now though, Eugene didn’t feel any pangs of regret as he voiced his scepticisms, “We don’t know for sure that the storm is what caused this. And even if it did, we don’t know if everyone who was hit during it are affected. Hell, we don’t even know for sure if that is what happened to us.”

“No, but we could ask around and see if there are others who have been experiencing similar things as us,” Burgie argues, his voice strong and firm. “We should also take the opportunity to warn them if that is the case. We don’t know what these people want from us yet.”

“And how do y’suggest we go ‘bout doin’ that,” Snafu says, and Eugene is grateful for the small act of support. It felt like Snafu and him hadn’t properly seen eye to eye since seeing each other again, but it felt good to know that the man had his back on this.

“Easy. We start with the newspapers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains quite a lot of dark themes, like blood and injuries so be warned.

“This is fuckin’ hopeless. We’re never going to find anyone in this goddamn city,” Snafu says, throwing himself down onto Leyden’s couch in an exhausted, boneless heap.

They’d been searching for days. Two weeks spent in a dusty library with their noses stuck in old newspapers from all over the country. Well, Jay, Burgie and Eugene had anyway, Snafu’s attention had been directed elsewhere for most of it.

While the others had been leafing through the same boring texts and jotting down names and addresses, Snafu had tried to explore his change. Despite Jay’s suggestion about certain emotions being involved, he was only moderately successful in getting his powers under control.

It was frustrating to say the least, as the others seemed to coping with it a lot better than him; Jay seemed to be fully in control of his, popping in and out of existence as he pleased. It had all made them jump on more than one occasion and Jay seemed to be making a sport of it. Burgie didn’t even seemed fazed by hearing all the shit they were thinking anymore, acting as if it was normal for him to start brewing coffee just because Snafu had the stray thought that he wanted it. The only one who was as in little control as Snafu was Eugene, but Snafu thought that was simply because they’d hardly been in any life threatening danger ever since their supposed encounter with Buchanan. Eugene did prevent Leyden from crossing the road one time though, his face an unusual shade of grey as he dragged Leyden to safety right before a car zipped past in 80 mph.

Snafu thought that the biggest problem was that he just couldn’t quite seem to figure out what exactly trigged the onset. Because unlike with Jay and Eugene, emotions or the threat of danger didn’t seem to be the only things involved with him having his dick crawl back up into his body. While it seemed to have contributed when he’d flipped out at Leyden, it didn’t quite explain why he’d changed that first time around after having sex with that woman or when he’d done it again when he’d been so close to Eugene that night. There was something he was missing but he wasn’t entirely sure what it was.

The sensations of changing was burned into his mind though. The tightening of his skin, the pain of his bones jarring, shifting, breaking. How every limb would stretch and change uncomfortably. How there was an annoying itch in the back of his brain and how the pit of his stomach would drop right before the onset of it all.

It was so brief every time though, and he had a feeling that if he was able to mentally catalogue that brief but intense pain then maybe he could improve his control somewhat. Maybe make it easier to stop it from happening before his entire body shut down in a grotesque display of bones and skin shifting to accommodate the smaller female body.  

Recalling those feelings, emotions and impressions helped though, and made him more aware of how this thing churned and brewed inside him all the time. It was constantly lying there dormant, yet he didn’t know how to tap into it.   

The change was fucking him up a lot mentally too. He wasn’t any closer to accepting it. In fact, as time went on it seemed like his mind rejected the female body more and more. He’d initially thought that while he hated that feminine body, he’d eventually get used to it, but it was impossible for him to reconcile the girl he’d see in the reflection of the mirror with himself.

She looked like him for sure, but that body didn’t belong to him. The small, stunted stature. The untamed mane of curls. The widened hips and ass. The tiny breasts. That fucking... thing between his legs. Even the memory of the alien feeling of his own fingers inside of him made him feel like throwing up. 

When he was her, he avoided the bathroom and the public like the plague, hating seeing himself like that and also having others around him see him like that. Or at least, he avoided it to the best of his ability. It was kind of hard to do so when Burgie ushered him out of Leyden’s tiny apartment every morning, telling him it would do him some good to put his energy into work.

As usual, Burgie was right. He’d managed to stay like himself for the whole of two days now.

It helped to focus his mind on something else, even though it was incredibly boring work and ended up with him and Jay playing tic-tac-toe on their notepads while Eugene and Burgie read and jotted down information.

It had ended up with Burgie kicking them both out, saying they could check out the few addresses they’d found reports on in the area if they weren’t able to sit still and behave like adults. They’d only visited two addresses before Snafu made someone cry, and after that Jay did most of the talking.

Their search had been fruitless however. People turned them away, or most of the time didn’t answer the door at all – which was a smart move, and was one Snafu wish he’d done when Burgie had turned up at his apartment that faithful Sunday that felt like it’d been ages ago now.

Snafu suspected that it was a pretty damn near hopeless situation trying to find people who didn’t want to be found, or those people who that Buchanan bastard had already gotten a hold of. How many people had already disappeared and why wasn’t anyone making a fuss about it?

“We’ve only been lookin’ for a little while, Snaf’,” Eugene says and kicks at Snafu’s feet to make room for him on the couch.

Snafu obliges, but just enough so Eugene has to sit pressed up against his shins. Eugene shoots him an annoyed look, and Snafu smirk and quirks a playful eyebrow at him in response. They stare each other down for a long moment before Eugene sighs dejectedly and Snafu feels a pang of disappointment at the inadvertent rejection.

“It’s weird though, isn’t it? We’ve already dropped by several residences but have come up with nothing. Do you think we’re too late?” Jay asks from where he’s slouched in the armchair.

“Maybe. People affected might be afraid of what is happenin’. We might not know until we actually find someone and get to talk to them.” Burgie sips on a glass of water, looking thoughtful. “Who knows what kind of remarkable abilities some people have acquired because of this.”

“There’s probably a lot of shit ones too,” Snafu supplies, trying to not feel dispirited by Eugene’s aloofness. “Maybe someone can make people sneeze just by lookin’ at ‘em. Which thinkin’ about it is actually more useful than mine. I could drive Leyden up the wall with that.”

The joke earns him a humoured snort from Jay but Burgie’s face twist into something unreadable. Before he gets to voice whatever thing that is on his mind though, the door to the apartment is kicked open with a loud bang, making everyone jump. They were all a bit on edge these days it would appear.

"How are you ladies doin’?” Leyden asks from where he is standing in the doorway with a cigarette dangling from his shit-eating grin and his arms full with a large, wooden crate. “Any luck with the papers?” 

“Nothin’ new since you asked us this morning.” Burgie is the first one to compose himself enough to answer, taking another cautious sip of his water.

“I’m tellin’ ya, something else must have turned you into freaks, because I was hit during the storm and ain’t nothing fancy, supernatural shit happening to me,” Leyden says and puts the large crate down on the kitchen counter, its’ glass contents clinking together alarmingly.

“Maybe it’s ‘cause you ain’t that special,” Snafu retorts, eyeing the crate with a healthy dose of suspicion.

It’d been about five days since Leyden had come home to them pouring over some notes and found out what they’d been doing. Initially they’d planned to keep him out of it in case something was to happen, but they’d been caught red-handed and Leyden apparently wasn’t stupid enough to believe they were all suddenly extremely enthusiastic about horoscopes. That had been when Leyden revealed that he’d been hit during that storm too, because of fucking course he had because Leyden couldn’t fucking go anywhere and not be injured.

This revelation had put an obvious damper on their moods as that left them on bare ground in terms of what had caused their strange, new abilities. Burgie had been adamant about continuing though, as it was literally the only clue they had and that just because Leyden didn’t experience anything weird didn’t mean anyone else did.

Snafu suspects his determination was because he didn’t want his powers any more than Snafu did. He was looking for some sort of way to fix things. Snafu could empathise. So no matter how much he dreaded those long hours in the library, he’d resolutely stood behind Burgie when the sergeant had said that they should continue with their original plan. 

“Well, I can investigate some of the addresses down south when I leave tomorrow,” Eugene says absently as he packs his pipe. He’d claimed only about a week ago that he’d stopped smoking, but it seemed that the urge was too strong. Eugene’d always needed something to keep his hands busy.

“What d’ya mean leave?” Snaf asks with a frown, pushing himself up in a seated position so he can look at Eugene proper. Snafu was not blaming him for wanting to return to his family, but he couldn’t help the pang of disappointment hitting him squarely in the chest.

The past days had been dull, yes, but had also made him realise how much he’d come to depend upon the other guys’ presence. Even though he’d never admit it out loud, it felt safe to be around them and he didn’t feel constantly on edge or like he needed to justify his actions all the time. It was liberating and despite the imminent threat of danger, Snafu felt at ease for the first time since he got back to the states. He suspected he wasn’t the only one who felt that way either, judging by how they’d all congregated to the living room during the nights, none of them really willing to spend it alone if they had to.       

“I have to go home. Sid’s weddin’ is comin’ up this weekend. I thought y’all knew?” Eugene says, pausing in packing his pipe to look at them all in mild surprise.

“We ain’t all mind readers like Burgie, Sledge”, Snafu says more harshly than he intends to, not quite able to conceal the hurt caused by Eugene’s news. He had no right to be of course, not when he’d left Eugene behind without any notice himself, but Snafu’s life was far from fair these days, so he thought that he was allowed to be a little petty about it at least.

“I didn’t realise it was so soon. Someone should come with you, going off on your own seems like a terrible idea right now,” Burgie says and slowly starts gravitating towards the couch, propping his elbows against the back of it.

“I’m not sure if you should. I’ll only be gone for a short while anyway, a week max.”

“We can’t risk that, Sledge.”

“Yeah, you’ll be gone for more than a week if they catch ya,” Snafu butts in to their argument, earning him a reprimanding slap on the knee and a glare from Burgie.

Eugene opens his mouth to argue, but before he is able to voice his probably very well-crafted argument Burgie says in his best sergeant voice, “I hear what you’re sayin’ but this ain’t really up for debate. You’d be sayin’ the same thing if any of us wanted to leave without the rest of the company.”

Snafu can feel Eugene’s fingers twitch restlessly where they’d fallen to rest against the fabric of his jeans, but there are no other outwards sign that Burgie’s words had reached Eugene’s ears by the way Eugene was regarding the sergeant evenly.

“No man for himself, remember?” Jay voice pipes in, effectively breaking the tense atmosphere Snafu found himself in the middle of.

Eugene breathes out a long, frustrated exhale. It was one of those gut-deep ones that usually meant Eugene was about to protests or argue and was decidedly similar to his irritable mood in Okinawa and when him and Snafu had gotten into a screaming match which had led to Hamm with two Ms’ premature end.

The intrusive memory makes Snafu shift uncomfortably in his seat and he starts drawing away, suddenly feeling an intense need for a cigarette and some fresh air. He didn’t want to be there right now.

Strong fingers grasp onto the fabric of his jeans possessively, keeping him from moving, and Snafu looks up in surprise to catch Eugene dead in the eye. The fiery look he gives him is indecipherable, though the way his jaw sets in determination in that brief second of eye-contact is telling enough for Snafu to sink back into his seat silently.

“Alright,” Eugene relents and turns his attention back to packing his pipe, his fingers easing their hold on Snafu. “I’m thinkin’ of jumpin’ on a last-minute flight that leaves around midday tomorrow. Can’t spend all day travellin’ like last time.”

Burgie seems to chew on this. “That’s fair. If only Snaf’ and I come with the price of it would be manageable if we split the cost evenly.”   

“Why do I have’ta go?” Snafu protests just as Jay objects with, “You’re just going to leave Bill and I behind?”

The fight that breaks out lasts for a good few minutes. Snafu knew that there really wasn’t a point to arguing with Burgie when he’d set his mind to something, but he really dreaded the thought of having to go back to Alabama after his last time there. He really didn’t care for those people’s scrutiny.

“How ‘bout –” Eugene interrupts loudly, effectively silencing the three of them. “We rent a car. The 20 hour drive will be worth it if it gets y’all to stop bickerin’.”

Burgie, Jay and Snafu all share a disbelieving look, not used to having their quarrelling so easily dissolved. Back in the day, it usually only ended when Hillbilly got tired of listening to them and ordered them to take it out on the oil barrels rather than each other.

“My uncle owns a car dealership. We could probably borrow one off of him for cheap if I asked,” Leyden says. There’s the distinct sound of a bottle cap getting removed and fizz coming out of a bottle, and Snafu peaks over the back of the sofa to see Leyden take a healthy sip of the newly opened beer.  

“That settles that then,” Eugene says with an air of finality that left no more room for discussion. “Bill will call his uncle and get us a car, and we leave early tomorrow mornin’.”

“As much fun it is to listen to you all argue like housewives, I have a job thing at the bar a few blocks down.” Leyden takes another large sip of his beer. “Feel free to come. By the sounds of it, it seems you could all need to get out of the house for a bit.”

As much as Snafu wants to argue that he was just fine where he was, Leyden has a point for once. They’d all spent so much time with their noses stuck in newspapers in dusty libraries or living atop of each other in Leyden’s apartment, they were all exhausted. Not to mention the emotional strain of having to deal with all this supernatural bullshit that was happening to them. As unappealing as the prospect of going to Leyden’s work event and have to socialise with other idiots like him was, they really did need to get out of the house and catch a break.  

Burgie sighs, apparently agreeing with Snafu’s unvoiced opinion. “One drink and then we go home. I mean it Bill, _one_ drink.”

Several hours later, Snafu finds himself sitting alone by one of the tables at the dingy bar a few streets away. As usual, it was never just one drink and Snafu, who is carefully cradling a glass of soda water in his hands because he has opted for staying off the alcohol after the last couple of times, feels himself growing impatient.

The surroundings made him worry about the possibility of changing in public. He dreads to think what would happen if he turns into a girl around all these men who were in various states of drunkenness.

And wasn’t that fucking ironic? How many women had he walked up to in bars and made crude remarks at them? Fuck, only just a few weeks he’d even walked straight up to a woman and asked if he could fuck her from behind in the back of a train.

If someone had said anything akin to that to him, he doesn’t know how he’d react. Hell, he doesn’t know how he’d react if someone had walked up to him while he was a girl with the intention of sex, no matter how much of a fucking gentleman they were.

Snafu knows enough about guys to know that a lot of them wouldn’t take a simple ‘no’ for an answer.  

Even just the thought alone has him feeling on edge and he glances apprehensively over to where Burgie and Eugene are standing by the bar, waiting to be served. The two of them are chatting amicably between themselves, unaware of Snafu’s rising stress levels. Eugene smiles that calm, patient smile of his at something Burgie says, and Snafu feels his heart clench in his chest. 

Casting his eyes back to the drink in his hands, Snafu chews his lips thoughtfully. He doesn’t get Eugene. In one moment he is cold and stand-offish with him, the next it is as if they’d almost eased back into that familiar dynamic they used to have. He tries to convince himself they were making some progress, but Snafu could still feel Eugene’s reservations whenever he was getting too comfortable him.

It is Snafu’s fault, really. He has yet to apologise to Eugene, just moving forward as if he’d never left Eugene on that train with the intention of never seeing him again, so he supposes he deserves Eugene’s misgivings.  

As he chances another glance in Eugene and Burgie’s direction, he catches the guy standing next to them staring at him. Instead of looking away, the guy slips into a charming smile when he sees that he’s been caught and Snafu has a moment where his stomach drops as he wonders if he’d changed without his notice, without feeling that inexplicable pain. 

Feeling self-conscious as the man makes his way over to his table, Snafu slides a hand through his hair with the pretence of pushing it away from his forehead – no still short. What did this guy want?  

The man is unimposing. Completely plain in his button-down and slicked back hair, boring face. There was a certain threatening air about him that was making Snafu’s hair stand on end though.

“Is this seat taken?” The guy asks, gesturing to the chair next to Snafu’s. Snafu is about to reply with something particularly scathing to get the man to fuck off, but the asshole doesn’t even wait to hear what Snafu’s got to say before he slides into the seat and says, “No one should have to drink alone.”

Who the fuck did this asshole think he was, acting like he could just do as he pleases?

“I’m not alone,” Snafu hisses, getting more annoyed and on edge by the second. “And I’m not drinking.”

Snafu is getting a really bad vibe off this guy, there was something off about him.

Desperately, he looks over to the bar, wondering what was taking the others so long. Burgie and Eugene are still waiting to be served and seem in no rush to get the bartender’s attention either. Jay has vanished off somewhere and Leyden is standing off to the side with some colleagues, being obnoxiously loud as usual. Snafu is on his own.

“Ah, I get you.” The man taps the side of his nose, his face twisting into a creepy smile as he leans in closer, his voice becoming hushed. “You prefer a different kind of poison? Well, I am your man if that’s what you want. I can give you all sorts of pleasures, darling. With just a simple touch.”

“I don’t know if you’re talkin’ about your cock or drugs, but I’m not interested in either so fuck off and leave me alone.”

The guy’s smile cracks slightly, gaining a dangerous tint to it, and he grabs hold of Snafu’s forearm in a vice-like grip, his fingers digging into his skin and grinding the delicate bones there together. He considers Snafu for a second before he leans in closer, so close his lips touch the shell of Snafu’s ear who feels himself freeze up at the contact.

“On the house,” the guy breathes into Snafu’s ear with his warm, wet breath before licking a long stripe up Snafu’s cheek who is finally shocked out of the frozen state he’d been in. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Snafu growls and pushes the guy off him forcefully.

He seems barely faced by Snafu’s reaction as he only gets up from his seat and walks off, the words “on the house” ringing in Snafu’s ear after the man’s departure.

Wiping the saliva away from his cheek with a grimace, Snafu has half a mind to run after him and kick his ass, but he decides he’d rather go to the bathroom to clean off that bastard’s spit. Who knows what diseases a guy like that might have.

Snafu’s barely made two steps he is hit by a nauseating dizzy spell. Snafu think’s he might be about throw up when another wave of dizziness hits him like a freight train followed by an agonizing pain that almost sends him crumbling to the floor. The pain is excruciating and familiar, and Snafu feels his heart jump in his chest as he realises what it means.   

In a rush, he scrambles into the men’s toilets, only hearing a “Hey, you’re not supposed to –” in passing before he shuts himself in one of the unoccupied stalls, sitting down heavily on the closed toilet lid.  

The pain doesn’t stop like it usually does. Instead, it just keeps getting worse, making him hyper-aware of the burning sensations of his skin tightening, his organs shifting, his joints aching. His hips are in agony as they keep indecisively shifting between widening and narrowing over and over.

Snafu starts to panic.

This isn’t normal, this has never happened before. It feels like he is stuck somehow, like his body cannot decide what direction it wants to shift in. Like it doesn’t know if it should be male or female.

A stabbing pain in his lower abdomen surprise a pitiful whine out of him, and he doubles over as he claws at his stomach in a desperate attempt to make it stop but it is only making it worse.

Through the blood rushing in his ears and the agony clouding his mind, Snafu barely registers the soft knock on the bathroom stall’s door or when it swings open quietly only for Jay to pop into existence right in front of him seconds later.

“Oh my god.” Jay rushes to Snafu's side, his hands going to his shoulders.

Snafu hears Jay suck in an anxious breath, but Snafu doesn’t want to even consider what it is that he sees. He wouldn’t be able to gather his thoughts enough to, even if he wanted. Everything was just a haze and Snafu could feel himself slipping quickly.   

Jay pulls Snafu close to his chest, his fingers digging into Snafu’s scalp. Jay’s presence is grounding, and Snafu feels himself coming back to himself, if only a little.

“Fucking Christ, Snafu. What happened to you?”   

Snafu chokes on his answer as a surge of agony races down his spine and spreading out to every nerve-ending in his body. It’s an effort to suppress the scream that threatens to spill from his lips, and Snafu pushes his face into Jay’s shirt to muffle the pained noises escaping him.  

An unmistakable, obnoxious voice sounds from the open doorway to the stall, “Why are y’guys hangin’ out in the shitter? Did you have ‘nother accident, Jay?”

“Go fetch Burgie and Sledge,” Jay commands with an uncharacteristic display of assertiveness. Snafu can barely detect the quiver in his voice.

“What –”

“Now, Bill!”

Snafu draws a deep, shuddering breath as the pain release it’s hold for a moment, dulling into a throbbing ache in his stomach and pulsing behind his eyes.

“Fuckin’ Christ Snaf’, you’re bleeding everywhere.”

With blurred vision, Snafu chance a glance down himself, seeing the red staining his shirt and jeans in blotches and small rivers. Gingerly, he touches the blood coating his chest and swallows hard when he feels the softened tissue there.

The small men’s bathroom suddenly becomes very crowded as Leyden stumbles in with Burgie and Eugene in tow. Leyden growls something at someone before shutting the door firmly behind them, and the room falls into a horrified silence as several eyes fall on Snafu who is partially shielded by Jay's frame.

“I just found him like this,” Jay rushes out, his earlier assertiveness now gone that a superior officer is there, which paved way for his fear. “He’s bleeding badly. It’s mostly a heavy nosebleed but some of it is coming from... his groin, I think.”

Snafu is nauseas all over again, but this time around it’s more the thought of what is happening to him rather than the agonizing pain itself that makes him feel sick.

There isn’t a doubt in his mind that the guy he'd had the displeasure of meeting earlier was behind this. Somehow. What was it that he'd said, ‘I can give you all sorts of pleasures, darling. With just a simple touch.’ Maybe the guy had been affected by the storm too, having no idea how his powers would fuck Snafu over like it had. Or maybe he did. The guy had certainly been enough of a creep to intentionally harm someone just for the sake of it.

“There’s this guy a’the bar. I think he –” Snafu begins with his voice cracking like it hasn’t done since he was a teenager, before something in his chest twists and snaps, cutting him off by tearing a scream from his throat through clenched teeth.

The pain is returning by a tenfold. His joints starts shifting again, everything suddenly feels unbearably tight and _oh god_ his skin feels like it is incinerating and peeling away all the way down his bones. He is dying, he is sure of it.

Cold hands carefully cradle his head, feeling wonderful against his searing face. “Fuck, you’re burnin’ up.” Burgie. Burgie could read minds.

Snafu does his best to form an image of the man in his mind, of what he’d done to him, not exactly sure how successfully he is conveying the message to the sergeant but praying that it is enough.

Burgie somehow hears him through the hazed hurt, his face twisting into something cold and unfeeling Snafu has never seen on his face before, not even when they’d been over there.

“Sledge,” Burgie says with so much authority that the other guys stand on attention. “Take Snafu back to the apartment. Try to stop all potential bleeding. Give him the strongest spirits we have for the pain if he’s stopped. Leyden, De L'eau, you're comin’ with me.”   

Everything after that happens in such a blur, Snafu cannot keep up with it when his body keeps distracting his mind with jolt and flashes of agony. All he knows is that a short while later, he finds himself being dragged down the street by Eugene while covered by Burgie's oversized coat that was drowning out any identifiable shapes or characteristics people might see at first glance.

The coat had been Burgie's idea. Had said it was best to cover up the blood staining his front to avoid curious civilian eyes. While true, Snafu knows that it was only an excuse to cover up the fact that the coat was to keep his changing body hidden.

He’d seen it on the guys’ faces and body language when they helped him get up and out of the bar; their wary expressions, their darting, searching eyes roaming all over him, the way they’d been hesitant to touch him as if they’d catch something.

Snafu can’t blame them as much as their behaviour feels like a blow. He hadn’t even dared to glance at his own reflection when he’d passed it on their way out, too scared of what he’d see. It would have been counterintuitive anyway. Snafu could picture what he looked like easily enough without the mirror; the itching of his scalp, his numb jaw, the tension in his shoulders, the soreness of his chest, the aching in his hips, the awful throbbing between his legs. He was stuck in some sort of ever-changing gender loop he had no idea how to get out of. Maybe if he could control his powers better he could have, but he’d didn’t.

“Y’sure you’re okay to walk?”

Eugene concerned voice snaps Snafu’s out of his thoughts and he glances over at Eugene who is hovering close by his side but not quite touching him. He looks worried, his hands fidgeting and itching to reach out.

“‘m fine,” Snafu grunts, voice hoarse and unrecognizable. He wasn’t fine. He didn’t even know if what he was currently doing qualified as walking, resembling more a staggering of a drunk, lame, three-legged horse than anything. It is making them spend twice as long to get back to Leyden's apartment as it had for them all to trek to the bar, but Snafu refuses to do anything except walk on his own goddamn legs. If he could survive for years in substandard human conditions at those forsaken islands, then he could manage walking a couple of miles back to Leyden's apartment too.

Eugene looks sceptical but lets the matter drop, and they lapse into silence once more, the only sound between them being Snafu’s heavy, whistling breaths as they stumble down the street.  

There isn’t many people around at this time of the evening except for a few stragglers who are rushing to get back to the comfort of their homes or have already found shelter for the night, so there are no curious heads turning when there’s a audible snapping noise that sends Snafu crumbling to the ground with piercing howl.  

By some miracle, Eugene manages to catch Snafu before he smashes his face on the concrete. “Jesus Christ.” Eugene's face is white as a sheet as he struggles to get Snafu back on his feet, his fingers digging into Snafu's ribs as he pulls at him. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“I think – I think my leg broke,” Snafu grits out between clenched teeth. The bones in his thigh jar against each other, realigning before they knit themselves painstakingly slow back together. The accelerated process sends a disgusted shudder down Snafu’s spine. Adding that on top of his hips and joints shifting and dislocating, Snafu wasn’t sure if he could make it all the way back to Leyden’s by himself without risking damaging himself permanently.

Thankfully, Eugene had the good grace of saving him from the embarrassment of having to admit it.

“Your goddamn leg broke,” Eugene says slowly with the air of someone who was trying to solve a particularly difficult puzzle. “Snafu, you can’t walk on a bum leg. Here, give me your arm.”

Snafu's shoulders protest as Eugene drapes Snafu’s arm around his own neck, but the strong arm that gently curls around Snafu’s waist is distracting enough to keep Snafu from instinctively tearing himself away from the source of the pain.

Just like that they continue their slow journey back to the apartment with Eugene hauling Snafu along, practically taking all of his weight.  

It isn’t anything that they hadn’t done before. During particularly long marches over in the Pacific, they often leaned on each other for support when they were drained after a long day or restless night. They never talked about it And Snafu had certainly never been one to make a fuss of it before. In fact, back then he’d welcomed the opportunity to take some pressure off his feet and have such an excellent excuse to be physically close to Eugene.

Now though it only served to humiliate him and remind him how much of an inconvenience he’d become, because Eugene wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t due to some misplaced sense of obligation.

Snafu didn’t deserve it anyway, misplaced or not, just like Eugene didn’t deserve having to lug a bleeding, barely conscious Snafu around Brooklyn in the middle of the night. Both of them deserve differently.

Eugene should be in Mobile right now, healing and about to enrol in school while he had some lovely girl on his arm that he could produce about a dozen kids with. Meanwhile, Snafu should be getting by, working and healing too, but not just from the scars the war left but from heartbreak as well. 

It’s what they deserved, not whatever this was.

And it angered him that Eugene is putting up with it, is putting up with Snafu, because there is obviously something bothering him. Something that is causing his mood swings and stand-offish attitude towards Snafu, who just wishes Eugene would either just let it the fuck go or talk to him about it, because Snafu doesn’t think he can cope much more with it.

Another jolt of agony snaps Snafu out of his thoughts and makes him stumble, but Eugene’s grip on him is firm and he pulls Snafu even closer to steady him.

The pains aren’t entirely overwhelming anymore and he is able to distinguish and catalogue them in his mind more easily now. Everywhere ached but there were certain areas where the pain was flaring up particularly bad, and Snafu tries to focus on his breathing as he attempts to mentally soothe them away.

By the time they finally make it back the apartment the pains have subdued into a moderate throbbing and aches. Snafu isn’t sure if it is because whatever the guy had done to him is starting to wear off or if he was getting some control over his own body again. Snafu didn’t dare hope for the latter, as much as he wishes that he might start to understand his powers finally.

Eugene silently helps him to Leyden’s bed and sits him down, extracting him from Burgie's coat with a astonishing gentleness. He hasn’t said anything since he told Snafu to give him his arm and the silence was putting Snafu on edge again. A quiet Eugene meant a thoughtful Eugene, and that never boded anything well.

“How’re ya feelin’?” Eugene asks, towering over Snafu where he sits slumped on the bed. He makes a surprisingly menacing figure despite his obvious concern and Snafu suddenly felt very small and insignificant.

“Fine.” It wasn’t an entire lie. He was feeling better, though his muscles were twitching every now and then, sending jolts of pain through him, and his skin was still tender and sore.

“Can you take off your clothes so I can check if you’re still bleeding?”

“No!” The thought of undressing makes Snafu’s entire body revolt in panic. He didn’t even know what he looked like, hadn’t dared to look and he certainly didn’t want Eugene to see what was underneath his clothes either.

“You need to let me have a look. It could be internal bleeding or organ failure.” Eugene reaches for him ever so slowly, but Snafu flinches away from his hand as if he was about to strike him. “You have got to let me help you, Snafu.” 

“I can do it myself.”

“I don’t think you –”

“I am not an invalid, Sledge! I don’t need help and don’t want it. And I certainly don’t want your pity!” All his insecurities rear their ugly heads, replacing his fear with hurt and anger which is only fuelled by the pain he is currently experiencing.

“It’s not pity Snafu, I just want to help! You’re in pain!”

“So what if I’m in pain, why do you give a shit? You’ve been actin’ funny with me for weeks. In one moment we’re completely fine, then the next you’re cold and don’t seem to give a flyin’ fuck ‘bout what happens to me,” Snafu growls. He is very aware he’s saying too much but he isn’t able to make himself stop. All his pent up frustrations from the past few weeks are surfacing; all the interactions with Eugene that has left him feeling confused and guilty. “I don’t get you. After everythin’ we went through, why aren’t you fuckin’ furious with me for leavin’, huh? If you were, then it’d explain why you’ve been actin’ like you’ve done, but y’told me yourself you’re not upset with me. So tell me, d’ya care or don’tcha, Sledge?”

“Do you seriously want to discuss this now?” Eugene says with his voice full of disbelief, but Snafu refuses to let himself waver on this. They were having this talk if Eugene liked it or not.

Something on Eugene’s face seem to shatter before it turns into a snarl. “Of course I fuckin’ care, Shelton! What kind of question even is that? Did you think abandoning me would make me stop caring ‘bout ya? I’ve been upset about it! You left me all alone, and I was so fuckin’ angry and upset ‘cause I thought we were in this together but you apparently had other plans. So excuse me if I keep my distance ‘cause I am scared that when I turn around that you aren’t there. And yeah, sometimes I forget myself, sometimes I throw my self-preservation to the wind because I can see you hurting because of all this and I fuckin’ hate it. This whole situation has got me caught between a rock and a hard place, because I am so furious and upset with you but you have your own problems to deal with, and I worried that conversation – _this_ conversation, would be break you. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Eugene’s words feel like a slap to the face. It’s what Snafu had expected but just like Eugene had just said, he hadn’t been aware of how unprepared he was to hear it. It’s also only amplifies the guilt he’s already been feeling when he realises that Eugene has done the selfless thing once again and put Snafu’s own wellbeing before his own.

The apology is on his lips then, but he’s still too upset to make himself voice it. Instead he spits out a weak, “Fuck you, Sledge,” and pushes himself off the bed and past Eugene. He regrets bringing it up. Eugene was probably tipsy and Snafu was in a lot of pain, neither of them are in good mental place to have this conversation.

Doing his best to ignore his aching body, he stumbles to the bedroom window and climbs outside to sit on the fire escape. With trembling fingers he gets his crushed pack of Camels from his still bloody jeans and puts one of the cigarettes to his lips.

As he struggles to get his lighter to work the bedroom door shuts behind him with a bang, making Snafu flinch but he refuses to turn around and chase after Eugene. They both needed time to process what they’ve said.

When Snafu climbs back inside sometime later and a couple of cigarettes shorter, there are voices coming from the adjoined kitchen and living room on other side of the door.

“– he said he’d no idea. He said that it usually makes people go completely euphoric to the point of becoming catatonic when he comes in contact with them.” Snafu recognises Jay’s voice easily and frowns at how unsettled he sounds.

“So what is it that he _does_ exactly?” Eugene asks, sounding just as unsettled as Jay.

“He drugs people.” Burgie sounds cold and impersonal, his tone suggesting a silent fury. “He won’t be a problem anymore.”

Snafu shudders at the implications. Surely Burgie hadn’t. Marine or not, Burgie has too much moral fibre to do something like that. The long silence on the other end of the door suggests that Eugene is thinking along the same lines and Snafu holds his breath for someone to say something.  

“He’s still alive. A bit roughened up, but that’s all.” Burgie seems to lose the hard edge as he says this, having obviously heard every single anxious thought in the room, though there’s a underlying bitterness to those words as well.

Another long moment passes, and Snafu kind of wishes he could see them in that moment, could see their faces to get some impression of what they all were thinking.

Surprisingly, it is Leyden who speaks up first. “How is he doing?”

Snafu doesn’t hear whatever Eugene replies as he pushes himself away from the door. He didn’t want to know what they would say about him, what kind of pity they would be expressing on his behalf. He’d had enough of that the last few weeks to last a lifetime.

The pain is almost completely gone now, leaving him drained and aching. His muscles spasm and his joints crack in warning every now and then, but he is no longer toeing that line of shifting into female anymore. The bleeding has stopped as well, but the blood on his clothes is starting to dry and clings to his sore torso and thighs. It makes Snafu itch for a hot shower.

A clean set of underwear and an undershirt sits on the bed. It hadn’t been there before, so Eugene must have snuck back inside with it while Snafu had still sat outside smoking.

It’s a considerate gesture that makes Snafu’s lip twitch in a sad smile. It wasn’t quite an apology, because that was Snafu’s responsibility, but it was a small peace offering of sorts.

Leaving the clothes be for now, Snafu enters the ensuite to clean himself off. The room’s fluorescent light are blinding as he switches them on, and he blinks rapidly as his eyes adjust to the strength of them.

When the spots finally clear from his vision he catches sight of his reflection; he looks haggard but male, for which he feels an immense relief. The soft tissue he’d felt on his chest earlier was gone and his wild curls are cropped short. If Snafu hadn’t felt the physical differences and changes himself earlier, he’d thought that the pain was maybe a trick of his mind.

His clothes are unsalvageable. The dark blood coating his front in dried out rivers stick to his skin and he has to carefully peel off his shirt to not aggravate the sensitive skin. He drops ruined material to the floor unceremoniously and glances back at his reflection, feeling his breath stutter as he surveys the damage to his body. Quickly kicking his jeans of as well, Snafu keeps his gaze glued to the mirror as more expanses of skin is revealed to him.

With shaking fingers, he ghost over a long, white stretchmark marring his left hip. It isn't the only one on him, but was definitely one of the more noticeable ones out of the smatterings of marks on his hips and chest.

The blood on his chest has already started to crust over dark bruises that are forming all over him, making it look like he had gotten into a street fight where he’d just laid down so they could kick him proper. Blood is sticking to his thighs and cock too, and Snafu is beginning to feel numb as his mind struggles with the reality of what his eyes are seeing.

Not even the Pacific had done this to him, left such distinct marks on him. Not physically. The scars he carries from the war have never physically manifested and left reminders that would never allow him to forget. They’d never branded him like this.

A lump starts to form in his throat and he meets his own eyes in the reflection, the shiny wetness in his eyes threatening to spill over.

Grabbing the washcloth by the sink, he scrubs at the blood in frantic, quick movements. The skin underneath the fabric is becoming red and angry-looking, burning all over again as he scrubs his skin raw to get the blood away, though he is barely able to see it through the large tears clouding his vision.

There is a noticeable tremor in his hands by the time he stops to take another look in the mirror. While the blood is gone, the scrubbing has only served to make the marks on him stand out even more.

A well of emotions hit him then, all the unfairness, anger and fear he’d been bottling up rushing through and overwhelming him. With a hoarse shout of frustration, he punches the mirror and it shatters into a hundred small pieces, making his tired-looking face look distorted against the now broken surface.

There are some tiny shards of glass embedded in his fist and Snafu flexes his hand against the stinging cuts. It didn’t compare to the one he’d experienced previously anyway so he turns on his heel and exits the bathroom without a second thought of cleaning the fresh wound.

The room over has fallen suspiciously quiet, but Snafu is barely aware of his surroundings as he absently pulls on the clean set of clothes Eugene has neatly laid out on the bed.

Crawling underneath the covers, Snafu sinks into the comfort of the mattress. Leyden’s bed usually felt like lying on a slab of concrete against his back, but below his aching body it felt like he was atop a cloud.

The safety of it relaxes him, making him aware of how completely wrecked he feels both mentally and physically.

His body is still trembling with the lingering effects of what that guy had done to him, but it didn’t compare to how emotionally exhausted he is. It is wearing on him, making his chest tight and leaves him with a screaming headache.

It feels like he will never be able to recover from this. Maybe he wouldn’t.   

Snafu swallows hard against the bile rising in his throat, trying to force back his unruly feelings and intrusive thoughts but there is no use as they flood his mind anyway.

Every doubt, fear and insecurity resurface; about Eugene, about Burgie, Jay and Leyden, about himself. Every question that keeps floating around his head unanswered echoes loudly between this ears, though the loudest one keeps screaming in almost deafening intensity: why him.

It’s overwhelming and hurts more than any physical pain ever could and for the first time since this whole thing started, Snafu lets his tears fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback is always greatly appreciated.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Burgie gains an interesting insight and learns a thing or two about Snafu's and Sledge's relationship

Burgie watches Snafu in the corner of his eye.

The man is propped up in the front passenger seat, his head resting against the cold window. Dark circles underline his closed eyes and his shallow breath is puffing against the glass. If Burgie hadn’t been able to hear traces of his thoughts over the noise of the car’s engine, he might have believed that the man is asleep.

The car is quiet, the other guys uncharacteristically sombre where they are crammed in the backseat. Their worried thoughts are so loud though that Burgie is convinced Snafu could even hear it which is why he pretends to be asleep.  

Burgie is worried too. Snafu had looked half dead this morning when he’d emerged from Bill’s bedroom. His eyes had been red and puffy as if he’d barely slept, the set of his mouth and his hunched shoulders screaming defensiveness and shame. He’d barely spoken to them, having avoided all eye-contact and had even winced when Bill clapped him empathically on the back. Burgie wonders if he’d still been in pain or if it had been something else.   

He turns his attention back on the road, trying to keep his own mind busy and distracted from the ones that are demanding his attention around him. He was starting to get though, having been the one to start their long drive down to Mobile at eight am and it is already a bit past noon. He doesn’t usually tire this quickly, but he doesn’t usually have to spend so much energy on blocking out his friends’ thoughts either. Thankfully, Jay would take over for him soon and he could get some rest.

Chancing another glance over at Snafu, he finds the other man looking at him through glazed, tired eyes.

The moment of contact makes every thought Snafu has come flooding in, clear as crystal and muting out the rest of the world. Burgie is pretty sure he is even able to feel the ache Snafu’s experiencing in his own joints. Worse than that are the spiralling thoughts of self-loathing and insecurity that feel as bad as any physical pain. Burgie has been listening to Snafu have these for the past weeks they’d spent together, so while it left a guilty knot in Burgie’s chest, it wasn’t exactly shocking. The thoughts did however seem reinforced by yesterday’s events.

Earlier, when Snafu had emerged from Bill’s bedroom, haggard-looking and barely standing upright, Burgie had instantly heard all of what had transpired the night before. He already knew some of it because of Sledge’s racing thoughts when they talked to him after returning from the bar, but hearing Snafu’s side of things revealed some unsettling pieces to the story.    

The dissonance in Snafu’s mind is worse than ever. It had been bad before, but now all his emotions and anguish is bleeding through the link and flooding Burgie’s senses. It’s so intense Burgie thinks he might vomit, but he can’t make himself look away because –

“Burgie, watch out!”

Burgie is snapped back to the present and he swerves back into the right lane, only missing the oncoming car by a few feet.

“Sorry, I got kind of lost there,” he says faintly. He can feel his heart is in his throat and the knuckles gripping the steering wheel is white from tension. Somehow he’d gotten completely lost in Snafu’s head and forgetting that he is driving down the busy highway.

“Alright, you’ve driven for long enough. Pull over at the next gas station and we’ll switch,” Jay says from the backseat.

Jay sounds shaken up enough for Burgie not to argue. The next gas station is only about 10 miles away, so Burgie does his best to keep his eyes firmly on the road and not let himself be distracted by his surroundings.

His own mind keeps whirling though, and it isn’t before he drives off the exit to the gas station that he decides he needs to have a word with Snafu. The other man couldn’t keep going on like this and internalising all of this shit. It is downright harmful; the state of Snafu’s messed up hand is evidence of that. Burgie doesn’t dare talk about it in front of the other guys though, doesn’t want to expose Snafu’s mind- and emotional state even though they all seem aware that he isn’t doing well.

Thankfully, the guys pile out of the backseat and head into the gas station when Burgie stops the car. They are muttering stuff about needing the bathroom and snacks, though Burgie can hear their thoughts about giving Snafu and Burgie space for a few minutes. Sledge lingers for a bit, but follows Bill and Jay when Burgie meets his gaze in the rear-view mirror.

Snafu is staring resolutely ahead with exhausted eyes, as if he also knows what is coming but knowing it is inevitable. The two of them talking never really worked out in Burgie’s favour; Snafu always shutting people out and pushing them away like he is scared what would happen if he were to actually say what he is feeling. Burgie isn’t going to give up just because Snafu is a stubborn, self-destructive ass.

On the matter of self-destruction, Burgie’s eyes slip to Snafu’s busted hand. “You want help with that?” he asks as casually as he is able and gestures towards the hand with a nod. It feels like a safer way to breach the subject, by easing Snafu into it rather than assault him with questions.

Snafu flexes his hand. “No, it’s fine,” he lies, though for once Burgie doesn’t have to read his mind to know that. The way he involuntarily flinches is telling enough. “Really.”

“Looks like it’d hurt,” Burgie observes. “Was it the guy yesterday who did that?”

The look Snafu levels him with is flat and unimpressed. “You know it ain't.” _‘stop playing  dumb it does not suit you’._

“Then stop being so evasive.”

For a moment, Snafu seems like he is about to just walk off, but then he slumps even further down his seat and sighs heavily. “If you have to know, I was...angry.” _‘upset’_. “You saw what that shit last night did to me. I felt so... completely out of control.” _‘helpless, been feeling helpless since we got back to the states’_.

Burgie had seen what had been done to Snafu the night before. He had watched the slow transformation taking place in Snafu’s body, visibly shifting his joints and bones underneath his skin, and constantly cycling his anatomy between male and female. Sometimes Snafu had appeared as both genders and other times as none. Out of all of it though, the worst to witness had been Snafu's pain. How he would grit his teeth together as he'd suppress another scream, the sound of bone jarring together, and his eyes which were so wide and full of fear you could see the white in them.

“I did,” he concedes just as the car doors are pulled open and Burgie is demoted to the backseat, squished between Bill and Sledge.

It’s a long drive from there, but Burgie allows himself to slip in and out of consciousness as he rests. _Never sit when you can lay down, never lay down when you can sleep_ , his mind reminds him.

By the time Eugene jumps into the driver's seat for the final distance to Mobile and Bill climbs into the back seat again while grumbling about Snafu sitting in the front still, Burgie feels more rested and refreshed than he has in a long while.

“How long until we're at your house, Sledge?” Burgie leans between the front seats to get a proper look of the road ahead as Sledge pulls back onto the highway.

Sledge glances at Burgie before he shifts his eyes back onto the road too. “A couple of hours maybe? That’s what my father said over the phone at least, when I spoke to him just now.”

“And he knows we're all comin’?”

“Yes, but.” Sledge's gaze slips over to Snafu who is actually sleeping properly this time. “He might be expectin’ someone else.”

Burgie looks at the relaxed face of the man curled up in the passenger's seat, at the tired lines and dark bruises there. It isn’t right to ask him to change again after last night but at the same time, they are all too visible and vulnerable right now. They would all benefit from keeping their heads low, and Snafu could hide in plain sight if he wanted. That would also make it easier for them to keep track of Eugene while in Mobile. If Bill and Jay keep out of sight and they stick close by Eugene then hopefully this thing would pass without a hiccup.  

“That ain’t right,” Jay mutters quietly next to Burgie, having caught on to the conversation. He isn’t a mind-reader or anything, but Jay really is a lot more perceptive than people thought. In a way, that ability made his powers make a whole lot more sense.

Still, while Burgie agrees with Jay, they cannot risk getting found out, especially Snafu. Burgie knows what those people after them intends to do with him if they caught him, had heard it and stolen that information freshly from Sledge’s mind that morning he’d come stumbling into the guest bedroom in a panic.

He couldn’t – wouldn’t – allow that to happen.

By the time they roll up outside the massive gate surrounding the Sledge’s estate it’s almost midnight, and Burgie can tell Sledge feels guilty for waking Snafu from his deep slumber.

It’s a strange thing to watch, Sledge leaning so close to Snafu and place a steady hand on his shoulder as he whispers those three little words into his ear, “Shelton, y’wake up.” It’s what they’d done during the war, it’s what foxhole partners did for each other, but the process is oddly intimate observing it outside of that context. Yet, it made sense. It is the most effective way to wake up someone and not startle them. Any other way for veterans like them would be asking for trouble. “Snaf’, we’re here.”

Snafu blinks awake blearily, taking a second to orient himself before he realises where they are. He sighs, sounding resigned as if he already knew their plan. “Can’t do it just like that,” he mutters, confirming Burgie’s suspicion.

“I know you’ve been practicing, Snaf’,” Burgie says, not unkindly.  

“I’ve only been practicin’ on how to reverse it. Why would I willingly turn myself into a fuckin’ bird?” _‘into something i’m not’._

Burgie gives him this look that he hopes is sympathetic but he worries that Snafu will only read it as pitying. “Y’know I wouldn’t be askin’ if I didn’t think it was necessary. Please, try.” Burgie is very aware of their rapt audience, but he keeps his attention trained on Snafu, tries to project the sincerity of his words.

“Whatever,” Snafu says dismissively but Burgie can clearly hear the _‘you fucking owe me for this’_ , before Snafu closes his eyes and a concentrated scowl forms on his face. There’s something about his thoughts that shift, the focus perhaps, but Burgie can’t exactly say for sure.

A long moment passes as they all hold their breath in anticipation, waiting for Snafu’s body to change in the way they’d witnessed a few times now. The only thing that shifts though, is when Snafu’s scowl deepen even further, scrunching up his nose.

“This is takin’ too long,” Bill complains eventually, leaning back in his seat next to Burgie. ‘ _give the guy a fucking break he should_ _not have to put himself through this again’_ Burgie hears him think, and he glance in his direction only to find Bill meeting his gaze head-on. As if he meant for Burgie to hear that. 

“Shut the fuck up, don’t rush me, dickhead,” Snafu snaps irritably at Bill. His voice sounds different though, lighter, indicating that he is doing _something_. Yet, this has never happened before that only certain aspects of Snafu change. Not before yesterday. Did whatever that guy do to Snafu last night mess shit up somehow?

Burgie doesn’t have time to dwell on it before Snafu gasps and double over in his seat while clutching his abdomen in pain. His jaw is clenched as he does his best to suppress a scream as his joints crack, hair grows and features shift.

Meanwhile, Sledge reaches over the mid-console separating them instinctively, his hand hovering over Snafu’s back unsurely. It’s obvious that he is reluctant because of his and Snafu’s fight yesterday, maybe even the stuff all before that. Burgie doesn’t know all the details but it’s none of his business. Still, Burgie keeps a close eye on the interaction the whole while.

When Snafu straightens, his features have once again melted into that of a young woman, hair and everything included. His clothes are ill-fitting and too big on him, and he looks exhausted and frazzled.

Jay is right by saying they shouldn’t have to ask Snafu to do this. Yet, Burgie is stumped about what else they could do. If what Sledge says about people being after them is actually true, then they simply cannot risk being seen altogether in somewhere like Mobile.

“How’re ya holdin’ up?” Sledge asks, giving Snafu an once-over as if worrying he’d start bleeding or involuntarily shift again. There is no indication that there would be a repeat of the horrors of yesterday though, Snafu’s appearance remaining distinctly female.

Snafu shrugs and slumps back into his seat, staring resolutely ahead at the big estate ahead of them. His exterior gave off that air he used to exude in the Pacific of not giving a shit, but his inside is in complete turmoil. It is disheartening to witness. When Snafu remains silent, refusing to speak much beyond answering simple questions, they begin their slow drive up to the Sledge estate.

Everyone’s moods have significantly shifted, so the last trek is quiet, the only sound in the car that of the engine and the gravel crunching underneath the tires. That is, quiet for a normal person. To Burgie it’s everything but as he is assaulted by everyone’s thoughts and concern in the car, making it hard to focus on anything at all.

Thankfully, the second they roll up to the front doors of the house, they are greeted by the Sledge’s house staff. There’s only time for quick introductions and promises that Mr. and Mrs. Sledge would see them for breakfast tomorrow before they are all herded into their assigned bedrooms.

Burgie finds himself once again alone with Snafu in the same guest bedroom they occupied last time they were here, with the same sheets on the bed and the same tired expression on Snafu’s face. In fact, Snafu looks like is about to collapse as he clumsily kicks off his pants and discard his shirt and jacket on the floor before crawling into bed in just his boxer shorts and wife-beater.

It’s difficult to keep himself from gasping out loud at the sight of Snafu’s exposed skin; it’s littered with bruises, some almost black round certain areas. Particularly dark is part of Snafu’s chest, where Burgie can spot a large bruise peaking out from the low cut of his top. Burgie had no idea that the night before had affected him like this, and he dreads to think what is hiding underneath the rest of Snafu’s clothes. He just wish Snafu would talk to him instead of keeping everything from those around him and trapped inside to the point of hurting himself.

Slowly, Burgie approaches the bed and undresses before slipping underneath the covers with some hesitance. He doesn’t want to bump into him by accident, not when he looks like he has been in a street fight and decided halfway through that he’d just lie down and let them kick him. Also, Burgie is very aware that last time they had been in this position, Snafu had refused to even share a bed with him, instead spending the night smoking and nodding off by the window. This time around though, Snafu doesn’t budge from where he is lying with his back turned to Burgie when the bed dips underneath Burgie’s weight. 

“Snafu?” Burgie asks in a whisper, suddenly feeling uncertain as he observers Snafu’s tense shoulders. Maybe he’s overstepping some boundaries, not just in terms of their sleeping arrangements but by pushing Snafu to change when he clearly is in no condition to do so.

“I hate it here,” Snafu mutters, barely loud enough for Burgie to hear.

It’s so honest and vulnerable, and definitely not the answer Burgie had expected, but Snafu doesn’t elaborate so Burgie doesn’t pry. It’s one of those rare moments where he is tempted to listen in on what Snafu is thinking, but he tells himself that Snafu needs time and privacy. Burgie doesn’t want to cheat.

Not long after, Burgie finds himself drifting off, the full day of travelling and constantly worrying about his friends having taken its’ toll on him.

For once, he isn’t haunted by images of dirt and filth. Instead, he dreams of being on a dark, empty train, the only sound that of the tinny voice coming from the train's speakers announcing his stop. As he pulls his bag from the overhead compartment he spots a man with auburn hair in the edge of his vision, but just as he is about to turn around to call out to him he is standing in a small, bare living room with a low-hanging roof. There are feet stomping and angry shouting coming from the floor above and he cowers underneath the noise, backing into the bathroom and shutting the door. The cramped room falls into a blessed silence as the latch of the door clicks shut behind him. He breathes a sigh of relief before his moment of peace is ruined as he turns around and is confronted by his own feminine figure in the mirror.

Burgie jolts awake with a gasp, a mix of regret, sadness and distress still lingering from what he’d just seen in his sleep. Had it been a nightmare?

“Bad dream?” Snafu’s ask and his piercing gaze meet Burgie's when Burgie blinks open his eyes to the sound of his raspy voice. He is a lot closer than he’d been yesterday, his face only inches away from Burgie. “You can let go of me now by the way.”

It takes a bit before Burgie realises he's been clutching tightly onto Snafu’s wrists, having grabbed on sometime during the night. He lets go as if burnt. “Sorry,” he mutters, his own voice scratchy from sleep and disuse. He rolls over on his back and rubs at his face, stubble scratching his palms. “Did I wake you?”

“No,” Snafu says simply before he pushes himself into a sitting position. He stretches like a cat and there’s an audible pop of the joints in his shoulders. The long mane of hair drapes down his back in messy curls and tendrils, and Burgie has the sudden desire to reach out and touch.

His hands stay firmly planted in his own hair though as he tries to sort out in his head what that dream had meant. Burgie is pretty certain it hadn’t been his dream, or nightmare, because nothing about it is familiar. Not even the emotions still lingering makes sense to him. 

Burgie chances another glance at Snafu, whose current small stature is sporting a narrow waist and raised chest, much alike that feminine figure reflected in the mirror in the dream. While Burgie couldn’t for the life of him remember the face of that woman, he is certain it’d been Snafu’s reflection he’d seen, it must have been.

That doesn’t explain the rest of it, but Burgie suspects that the bit about the train has something to do with Sledge. Both Snafu and Sledge have been thinking about it for the past few weeks and been acting weird around each other, but every time they know that Burgie is around they immediately try to distract themselves from it. Something is going on between them but Burgie just doesn’t know what.

A polite knock on the door brings Burgie out of his musings and he shares a confused look with Snafu. “Yes?” he responds, watching as the door is pushed open to reveal Tee, the Sledge’s butler.

“Pardon me. I don’t mean to disturb but I was told to inform you that breakfast will be served soon, sir,” he says, eyes trained on Burgie the whole time. He is averting his gaze from Snafu, his thoughts telling Burgie that he worries that directing his attention over at what he thinks is Burgie’s fiancé in her indecent state of undress would be inappropriate and might get him into trouble.

Snafu doesn’t know that though, and Burgie can tell Snafu is bristling in anger at being so deliberately ignored. _‘i am here too, why won’t he look at me, look at me look at me, is it because i look like this.’_

Burgie is therefore quick to thank the butler, who shuts the door after himself when he leaves. When he turns to Snafu to try to reassure him, Snafu is already out of bed and is pulling on his jeans. Mrs. Sledge would not be happy with that particular choice of clothing, but Burgie really didn’t have the heart to tell Snafu to put on something less masculine.

An idea strikes him then. “Snafu, wait.” He leans over the edge of the bed, picking up his discarded bag. “Put this on,” he says and throws the old, grey wool sweater his mother had knit for him at Snafu.

“Why?” Snafu asks, catching the garment in mid-air and looking at it in confusion

“Because it’s what I wore last time I was here. Mrs. Sledge might recognise it and then we can say you’re just wearing my clothes. Couples do that.”

“Yeah, couples,” Snafu mutters petulantly but doesn’t protest as he pulls the oversized knit work over his head. His thoughts reflect gratitude that Burgie isn’t telling him to wear something demeaning like a dress or anything like that, even though Snafu suddenly seems incredibly interested in the pattern embroidered into the knit of the sleeves.

Snafu continues inspecting the long sleeves during breakfast as well, picking at a piece of loose string at the frayed edges. He is paying more attention to that than the food on his plate that is getting cold.

Jay, Bill and Eugene are all looking between Snafu and Burgie, sensing that something is going on but neither Snafu or Burgie are paying them any mind as Mr. and Mrs. Sledge quizzes them about their pretend wedding. During the whole conversation, Mrs. Sledge keeps eyeing Snafu disapprovingly, her mouth pursed, but the plan had worked and she recognises that it’s the clothes Burgie wore last time. At least the sweater is. Mrs. Sledge doesn’t need to know the rest belongs to Snafu.

“So Eugene, what are the plans for today?” Mr. Sledge asks pleasantly towards the end of the meal, taking a sip of the fine china containing his morning coffee.

Sledge chews on this for a little while, his eyes jumping between everyone at the table. “I was goin’ to help Sid gettin’ ready for the reception. There are also some last minute preparations, like settin’ the tables and stuff like that, cleaning up after the rehearsal dinner.”

Mr. Sledge turns to Burgie and the others then. “And what about you boys, are you helping as well?”

Bill and Jay murmur something non-committal. They don’t have plans for the day, but aren’t attending either. Squeezing Burgie and Snafu in last minute had been difficult enough and none of them are going to ask Eugene to test the limits of Sid’s charity. Or rather, his soon-to-be wife who is not fond of unexpected guests, but understood the want of having an old comrade of Eugene and his fiancé there.

Still, it looks like they might get recruited to help carry tables, but Burgie himself had no intention of getting roped into any wedding preparations.

“Actually,” Burgie says and grabs hold of Snafu’s hand that’s picking apart his mom's knitting. It earns him a bewildered look. “I wanted to take Flo out on the town, explore a bit since we really didn’t get the chance last time. Ain’t that right, darlin’?”

“That’s right.” Snafu squeezes his hand back so hard it’s a challenge not to flinch. He smiles sweetly, though his mind is shouting all sorts of obscenities in both French and English at him. ‘ _call me darling again and i will be planting crabs in your bunk for the rest of your life_ ’.

The idea is met with various degrees of enthusiasm; the other guys aren’t happy about being left to do all the heavy lifting but both Mr. and Mrs. Sledge seem to think it’s a good idea as they keep suggesting places to visit in town. It ranges from historical landmarks to romantic getaways, all of which Snafu looks mildly bored and disgusted by though he is hiding it well from Sledge’s parents as he nods empathically as they speak.

Soon enough the two of them, Snafu and Burgie, slip out of the house with their head whirling with information but not remembering a single name of any of the places that were suggested to them. Both of them know that they aren’t going to go to any of those places anyway, but while Burgie is walking with intent down the gravelled pathway away from the Sledge’s estate, Snafu trails behind, his mind trying to figure out what Burgie is planning.

As soon as they have put enough distance themselves and the estate and are out of sight, Burgie leads them off the path and into the undergrowth. They don’t walk too far into the forest but just enough for no one to stumble upon them by accident.

Snafu seems to have caught onto this fact though has entirely missed Burgie’s intention. “As romantic as this whole sneakin’ off and callin’ me darlin’ shit is, y’know we ain’t actually engaged, right? I ain’t goin’ to be rollin’ ‘round with ya in the leaves or anythin’.” _‘going to need some liquid courage before that happens’_.

“I know that, Snafu.” Burgie takes a deep, composing breath and silently counts to ten. Snafu has always been a bit of handful and Burgie knows being an ass is just a defence mechanism of his, but sometimes Burgie really needs to disassociate so he doesn’t smack him. “I thought you could use the opportunity away to change back to yourself, if you want to. Get some time off from being a girl.”

“It ain’t that simple, I can’t change just like that,” Snafu says and crosses his arms over his chest. It’s almost like he’s trying to hide. “Even with practice, I still can’t figure out what triggers it. Last night was just a fluke.”

There is no point in having this argument again, not after yesterday. It’d be good for Snafu to get this break and it would also be good for him to get more of a handle of his powers. He’s been so different lately to the Snafu Burgie knows, and Burgie really couldn’t stand seeing and hearing Snafu so defeated. If Snafu could control the change then maybe he would return to his usual self. First though, Snafu needs to learn how to gain that control.

“Okay. Then I’ll help.”

Snafu looks at him in confusion. “What?”

“Maybe examining what caused the past couple of times will help, what you were feelin' and what the situation was. I can look, if you’d like? An outsider’s perspective might help.” Burgie says, ideas already jumping at him as he extends his hands towards Snafu. He’s noticed that touch makes this whole mind-reading thing a lot easier; like physical contact strengthens the connection he has with the people around him.

Snafu hesitates, chewing on his bottom lip as he considers Burgie's offer _‘if i let him he will see and he will know everything, but i need this i cannot go on like this, this is not who i am'._ Then, he looks at Burgie seriously. “If I let you, will y’promise not to tell anyone?”

“I promise.” Burgie doesn’t take lightly on promises, but this is definitely the easiest one he has made in a long while. Besides, he already promised Snafu that he'd help find a solution to this when they’d reunited. He doesn’t see a problem making another promise to uphold his past one and help Snafu.

“Okay,” Snafu says with a deep, composing sigh. He considers Burgie’s outstretched hands for another moment before slotting his own into Burgie’s grasp.

Burgie cannot help but let his thumb trace over the cuts of Snafu’s busted knuckles, the wounds there telling a story of their own about Snafu’s state of mind. Thankfully, Snafu doesn’t seem to notice.  

“What now?” Snafu asks, rising a quizzical eyebrow at Burgie who is snapped out of his thoughts. “We just gonn’a stand here holdin’ hands?” _‘cause that is kind of gay’._  

“Well, if that’s what y’want, but I personally would find it a lot more productive if you tried to remember those times you changed. That’d be a good place to start,” Burgie says drily.

“Right.” Snafu closes his eyes, a concentrated frown marring his dainty features.

Barely a second passes before Burgie is assaulted by images that makes the forest around them melts away. They pass in such a flurry that Burgie is struggling to make sense of any of them until they come to an abrupt halt and Burgie finds himself in the bedroom of Snafu’s apartment. The scene has a certain dream-like quality to it but Burgie thinks it is shockingly vivid despite.

He suspects he must be seeing none of Snafu’s memories but he had never experienced this before. Usually, it’s all superficial thoughts and feelings, he’s never thought it even possible to delve into Snafu’s mind like this.

Burgie is brought back to the memory as someone slams the door in the distance and he can feel the faint traces of alcohol and euphoria flowing through him like a ghost. While the entire scenario is unfamiliar to Burgie, he somehow knows that he is witnessing the evening before Snafu first changed. That night when he’d slept with that married redhead.

There’s no time to dwell on how he knows this as an overwhelming exhaustion follows the post-orgasm sensation and the memory fades away to nothing until Burgie is certain that Snafu has backed out on him.

Everything is completely dark, but then, Burgie feels something stir to life again. There is a flash of red hair and pale skin in Snafu’s mind’s eye and there’s fingertips gracing against skin and wetness followed by panic.

Burgie would wince if he could as Snafu’s eyes pop open and Burgie sees a woman’s naked body attached to him, attached to Snafu, and while Burgie had expected it he cannot help but feel slightly panicked himself. It is like his own mind is trying to reject what he is being shown and seeing through Snafu’s eyes, as if the memory is his own experience.   

Snafu is really giving him a front seat to every detail and aspect of his memory, though Burgie isn’t sure if this is what he imagined would happen when he allowed Burgie to have a look. It certainly isn’t what Burgie had expected when he asked. He could have never imagined reliving the memory from Snafu’s point of view like this, could never have imagined Snafu would allow him to see this if he knew how much Burgie would see of _everything_. It is incredibly intrusive, and also disturbingly real. To Burgie, it feels like this is something that is happening to him, even though logically he knows it isn’t.    

For a long second, it is as if Burgie are suspended in time as Snafu’s eyes stare down at his own body and gives Burgie a full view of exactly how much the change affects Snafu’s body; everything is smaller, smoother and shapelier. If he could, Burgie would look away, but the scene and Snafu’s intent, panicked gaze doesn’t allow Burgie to do so.

Just when Burgie thinks that he should remove himself from it, the memory shifts and he is staring hard at Bill Leyden’s pale, horrified face. A heated, blinding fury mixed with overwhelming guilt is rolling through Snafu and there’s the ghost of a burning pain, and Burgie dreads to think what that feels like when Snafu is actually experiencing it.

Then, the scene shifts again, and Burgie finds himself in another bed, but this time Sledge is on top of him, on top of Snafu, half-naked and staring down at him with a far-away look in his eyes. He can feel Snafu’s mouth moving but the words are muddled to Burgie, as if he is speaking underwater.

Whatever he’s said seems to have had an effect on Sledge though, who cups Snafu’s face with this incredibly tender look on his face before it changes to dread. Suddenly, his hands are roaming all over Snafu and Burgie wants to instinctively twitch away from the calloused palms on sensitive skin.  

Burgie can tell this is too much for Snafu whose whole body seems to be thrumming with anticipation and warmth. Then, when Sledge leans towards Snafu, closer than any comrade has any business being and whispers “I should be the one askin’ you that, don’tcha think?”, it feels like something within him snaps. It’s like that of a rubber band against his skin and his body shudders in response. The pain from earlier returns, but somehow it’s even worse than before as his bones aches and skin is burning – Burgie imagines this is how it must feel to have hot coals dumped all over him and he isn’t even experiencing it for real.

Once again, Burgie is ripped away from the memory and thrusted into a new one. Again and again, he sees and feels everything that Snafu’s gone through each time he’s changed. Burgie sympathises every time Snafu looks in the mirror and pulls at his long hair, does his best to hide the soft tissue of his chest and hips underneath big shirts and sweaters, tries to make his small stature taller and broader by standing straighter than he’d ever done as a marine. 

Each time he changes there’s something different about it. Despite the amount of times Burgie witnesses the change, he doesn’t understand what causes it. Sometimes it seems to be Snafu’s emotions that trigger it, either through anger, guilt, panic or sadness. Other times, it seems to be situational and the people he is around. The only definite time seems to be when Snafu’s is orgasming, and Burgie hopes that he never has to be privy to that sight of Snafu tossing himself off ever again.

After what feels like a lifetime of someone else’s past, when Burgie thinks that he might have seen all there is to see of Snafu’s memories, he is hit by the worst pain yet.

This time, there’s no phantom pain or distancing himself from it like before, it’s very real and fresh and Burgie wants to scream as it feels like his entire being is being torn in every direction. It gets so bad that he rips away from Snafu’s touch, only having a second to adjust to being back in his own head before he lands hard on his ass on the damp forest floor.

“Ah, shit.”

Snafu appears at his side in an instant, crouching down next to Burgie. His face appears in Burgie’s line of vision and Burgie notices that his features have sharpened once again, gaining that masculine edge to them.

“Y’ alright?” he asks. He also looks unusually concerned, a deep frown on his face as his eyes searches Burgie’s for answers. “What the fuck did’ya jus’ do?”   

“I don’t know,” Burgie admits shakily. There is no simple answer to Snafu’s question. He doesn’t know how or why, he doesn’t even know what he’d seen really. All he knows is that everything he'd seen and touched had felt very real. The pain he is certain had happened though; he isn’t sore but for some reason it feels like he should be from the complete overwhelming agony he just experienced. It makes him wonder how Snafu never said anything about it, discounting just two days ago when he screamed his throat raw.

“Does it always hurt that bad?” Burgie asks quietly, suddenly feeling guilty he has never tried talk to Snafu about this, tried to understand that this isn’t just a matter of Snafu feeling estranged to the body he inhabits. He’s never considered that this hurts him in more ways than one.

Snafu looks at him for a long time, his expression turning detached but Burgie knows better. “You’re nose ‘s bleedin’,” Snafu remarks, brushing aside the question like it doesn’t mean anything that he suffers to the extent that he feels like he is being ripped apart and put back together every time he changes. _‘it does’_.   

Touching his nose, Burgie’s fingers come away red. The sight of it makes the pit of his stomach drop, which should be ridiculous considering he is a fucking veteran, but images of his crotch and thighs crusted in dried blood flashes before his eyes and he has to suppress the sudden urge to vomit.

Snafu must somehow have been able to notice this fact as he grabs Burgie’s bloodied hand and gives it a firm squeeze. It’s very grounding. “Hey. You’re okay, Burgie. It’s alright.” While Snafu is thinking he is having a breakdown for all the wrong reasons, not knowing that it isn’t the war that is haunting Burgie but Snafu’s own experiences, the rare display of sympathy is touching.

Burgie forces himself to take a deep, shuddering breath. He will not allow this shit to fuck him over, he will not let Snafu see how badly his memories affects him. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m fine.” He squeezes Snafu’s hand back, soiling it with his own blood but Snafu doesn’t seem to care.  

They sit like this for a moment before Snafu lets go. “C’mon boo, y’promised to show your fiancé ‘round town. Now, are you going to leave me hangin’ or what?”  

Later, they find themselves sitting by the docks, watching the ships spew out steam and smoke as they sail in and out of Mobile with crews running around on the deck.

Burgie’s head still feels too foggy and full with Snafu’s memories. He just couldn’t make sense of them, not seeing any connection between the changes. He might be too shaken up by the experience though, because when he’d offered he hadn’t known that deep-dive into Snafu’s memories would happen. Burgie had expected the physical contact might strengthen the connection, but that had certainly been way more powerful and involved than he’d been prepared for.

Still, Snafu would want answers. Burgie can tell from his thoughts that he is practically combusting in anticipation, though not letting himself voice the question because of concern for Burgie’s well-being. Who’d ever thought Snafu could be that selfless? It comes to a point where Burgie can’t keep Snafu in the dark any longer though, sensing that Snafu is getting more and more agitated as the minutes tick by.

Burgie sighs. “I don’t know how to help’ya, Snaf’. I thought I might have, but.” He shrugs, suddenly ashamed and disappointed in himself that he couldn’t do more for his friend.   

Snafu looks at him quizzically before realisation dawns on his face followed by resignation. “Figures,” he says, doing his best to hide his frustration by fishing his cigarettes out of his pocket. Putting one between his lips, he lights it and take a deep drag from it. “Still, you must’ve done somethin’ right. This,” he says, blowing out a lungful of smoke as he gestures to himself. “This ain’t my doin’.”

“Not sure if I can take the credit for that. All I was durin’ that was being a passive viewer of what you showed me, couldn’t do a single thing,” Burgie says with a shrug. “I want to help, but I think you ought’a take more time to figure this out.”  

Snafu chews on the butt of his cigarette as he listens to Burgie’s words, his mind working so fast that Burgie doesn’t even bother trying to hear what he is thinking.

“I don’t want to have to figure it out. I just want shit to return to normal,” he says eventually. He doesn’t sound angry, just exhausted and done. “Ain’t like we don’t have enough fucked up shit to deal with, y’know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

It is true. Burgie has seen it in all of them the past weeks they’d spent together. While they all pretend that everything is fine, the torrent of emotions Burgie is assaulted by on a daily basis says differently. It hurts him that he can’t do anything about it, only offering empty words of comfort that always fell on deaf ears. It might be why he is so adamant in helping Snafu with his powers, because it is the only thing he feels he could be useful for.

Snafu doesn’t seem to be done talking though, obviously getting some things he's been dwelling on off his chest. “It makes ya wonder who is behind this bullshit, right? Like, this ain’t natural. There’s some fucker out there playin’ God, probably doin’ it for his own fucked up pleasure or somethin’. Wants an army of freaks to control and play with as he pleases.” Snafu throws the cigarette into the waters below them and together they watch the cigarette butt get carried away by the waves. “Maybe even sell us off like weapons to the government, start another war.”

“War has always been profitable to the guys at the top,” Burgie remarks absently as he considers Snafu’s argument, his eyes still watching the waves below. Snafu has a point. What if this whole thing is caused by some power-hungry warmonger with weird science on his side. It’d explain why people are after them and could back up their theory of someone being behind paying people for coming out to the papers. It is all just theories though and no proof. “An artificial lightening storm, y'say? It’s possible. Don't know how we’d go ‘bout provin’ that one though.”

“We could let ourselves be caught,” Snafu says casually, like he isn’t suggesting them signing their own death warrant. “If what Sledgehamma’ says is true, that these people are on our tail, then it shouldn’t be too fuckin' hard.”

“Are you goin’ Asiatic, Shelton?” Burgie asks seriously, almost angrily because of Snafu’s total lack of self-preservation. Did he care about himself so little? “I’m about to lock ya up myself ‘cause what you’re suggestin’ is suicide, and I ain’t going to let you go through with that.”

Snafu considers him for a long while before he huffs and lights another camel. “Well, if we’re stickin’ around here for three whole days, waitin’ for a wedding, we ain’t exactly hidin' no more, are we. Puttin' a massive target on our backs if ya ask me.” He offers Burgie his cigarette.

Accepting the smoke, Burgie takes a deep drag of it. He relishes in how the nicotine fills his lungs and relaxes his limbs. He hasn’t realised how tense he’s been until his entire body seems to melt into the sun warmed concrete beneath him.

“If we stick together and to our plan, then we will be in and out of Mobile before anyone gets to us,” Burgie replies easily as he hands Snafu his cigarette back. He isn’t nearly as convinced as he pretends to be, but he doesn’t want to feed into Snafu’s fears further. Still, there are undeniably some challenges and catches to their current plan that will definitely not help ease Snafu’s anxiety. “We will need dress clothes for the wedding.”

There's a tense moment as Snafu smokes the camel down to the filter. “Burgie, I don’t even own a fuckin’ suit,” Snafu says with a sigh, exhaling a large cloud of smoke in the process. _‘do not ask me to buy a dress please’_ a sort of sad acceptance lace Snafu’s thoughts, revealing emotions his flat tone doesn’t. “Ain’t got no fuckin’ money anyway,” he mutters quietly, and stubs the ignited filter into the concrete aggressively before it follows the first cigarette into the murky waters below.

Burgie sighs. “We'll scrape some together. We'll figure it out.”

“I am not above theft,” a familiar voice says before Jay suddenly pops into existence next to them, making Burgie and Snafu jump simultaneously.

“Fuck, how long have y’been sittin’ there!”

“Long enough to know you need my help.”

A few hours later they are all trudging back to the Sledge's estate together, the gravel crunching loudly underneath the soles of their shoes as they walk in companionable silence.

Burgie has the honour of carrying a brand new dress and shoes in his arms as Snafu wants nothing to do with them, having made a face when Jay had proudly presented his loot. He hadn’t even bothered to inspect it properly, said that how it looks doesn’t matter anyway as he would have to be blind drunk before even putting it on.

The only instructions Snafu given Jay when he’d gone off to steal clothes for them had been, “At least make it black so I can mourn the death of my masculinity.” That had led to an argument about what colours you could and could not wear to a wedding. In the end, Jay had been the diplomat that he is and brought Snafu a simple dress coloured a dark blue.  

Jay had also brought Burgie a pretty plain, standard-fitted suit. While he would have preferred his dress blues as he feels more comfortable in a uniform, he appreciates the effort Jay went through to get it for him.

The black of the suit jacket is peaking out off the paper bag Snafu has been balancing in his arms during their trek from town which Snafu now is handing over to Jay. Snafu cast a glance at the large, imposing facade of the main house of the estate and squares his shoulders.

“Suppose I can’t stay like this, huh?” he says half-jokingly, though he sounds about as tired as he did the night before. The amount of changing back and forth he’s done in the past few days are like cracks in his armour and his exhaustion is showing through.

“I’m sorry, Snafu,” Burgie says, genuinely meaning it. He hated to ask before, but now he feels downright awful knowing how it hurts Snafu every time.

“’s not your fault. Gene’s parents’ faces would’ve been pretty funny though,” he chuckles. Insane as it is, Snafu seems to be trying to comfort Burgie in his own strange way. “Now shut up and let me focus.”

Jay and Burgie hold their breaths as they stare intently at Snafu, expecting to see something shift, but just like so many times before the only thing that changes is the concentrated frown on Snafu’s face that gets deeper and deeper as the minutes trickle by.

_‘come on come on come the fuck on, why does it not work when i actually need it to’_ Snafu thinks, his frustration evident.

It’s only a moment later when Snafu gives up, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I can’t do it,” he says, rubbing at his face tiredly. “I can tell it’s there, I can feel it, but I don’t know how it _works_. I told’ya, last night was just a fluke and so was today.”

“Maybe your heart’s not in it,” Jay suggests light-heartedly. _‘i wish i could help you somehow’_.   

“Yeah, no shit.” Snafu buries his hands in his hair. “Fuck, I can’t walk back in there like this.”

“Maybe y’won’t have to,” Burgie mutters to himself, already forming a plan as to how they could get Snafu inside of the house without being detected. If he could, he would let Snafu waltz right in because it’s like he said, Mr. And Mrs. Sledge's faces would be priceless, but he doesn’t want to risk attracting that kind of trouble. They would have to figure something else out. “Okay, gather ‘round. Here’s the plan.”

Not long after, when they have helped Snafu climb up on the roof and made sure he's managed to crawl through the window leading to the guys’ bedroom without breaking his neck, and Jay has disappeared off to find Bill, Burgie pokes his head into the living room where he finds Mrs. Sledge by herself, sipping on a cup of tea and deep in thought.

“Evenin', Mrs. Sledge,” he greets her politely, doing his best not to startle her. He doesn’t quite manage as she jumps slightly in her seat, but the tea remaines unspoilt in her hands so he supposes that’s something.

“Oh, hello Romus. Did you and Florence have a pleasant outing in town?” She asks pleasantly when she’s collected herself and put the saucer down onto the table. She folds her hands him her lap.

“Yes, we had a nice day. Took a stroll down by the docks and everythin’. Sn-Florence even got herself a dress for the wedding.”

Mrs. Sledge's brow quirks in interest at this, but the only thing she says is “That’s nice. I am sure she looks lovely, ” in that same pleasant tone of hers. _‘a beautiful girl like her would benefit from wearing more feminine clothing’_. “Speaking of, where is your Florence?”

“She’s not been feelin’ well so she has retired for the evening, ma’am,” Burgie says smoothly. It isn’t entirely a lie, Snafu is definitely having a rough time. He needs all the rest he can get.

“Florence isn’t feelin' well?” A concerned voice asks from behind Burgie.

“Eugene, I didn’t expect you back this soon,” Mrs. Sledge says, her voice filled with surprise. “If I’d known you’d all be back now I would have asked the cook to prepare something. Especially for Florence if she is ill.”

“It’s alright, Mother. Sid and Mary have made me sample different things all day, so I’m not hungry,” Sledge says, waving her off.

Burgie also politely declined the offer.

“Well, I think I am going to retire too and make sure Florence is alright,” he says when he has managed to reassure Mrs. Sledge that it isn’t necessary to make a fuss over them, truly.

“Oh yes, of course. Give my regards to Florence, will you? I hope she feels better by the morning,” Mrs. Sledge says genuinely, her words reflected by her thoughts.

“I will. Have good evening, ma'am,” he excuses himself, nodding at Sledge as he passes him and heads down the hallway.

He hears Sledge exchange a few more words with his mom before he follows after Burgie, catching up to him at the foot of the staircase leading up the second floor. “Burgie, y'got a second?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

Sledge hesitates for a moment, looking slightly consternated. “Is Snafu okay?” It should have been a simple question, but for some reason when Sledge asked it, it suddenly sounds like a very loaded and complicated question. His thoughts aren’t helping, being a muddled, anxious mess. It seems to be the norm for him these days.

“Sure. As okay as he can be given his situation,” he says slowly, trying to gauge Sledge's reaction. When Sledge stays quiet, Burgie says, “I’m sure he’d appreciate if you asked him yourself.”

“I don’t want to bother him,” _‘i want to but he does not want to speak to me, i do not know what to say'_

Burgie frowns. That doesn’t sound right. All that he’d heard from Snafu for the past few weeks had been a wish to talk to Sledge, to apologise for _something_ , but Snafu has had the same thought that Sledge seems to have now, that he didn’t wish to speak to him. Really, the two of them who’d been as close as they had been during the war, it is strange to see them toeing round each other like this now. Additionally, it is an unnecessary stress they do not need and would have been easily solved if they just talked to each other.

“Maybe you should, Eugene,” Burgie says not unkind. He claps Sledge's shoulder reassuringly before he heads up the stairs, leaving Sledge at the ground floor with a million thoughts running through his mind.

When Burgie gets to their door, he knocks quietly and listens for sounds on the other side. To anyone else the guest room would sound dead silent but Burgie can hear Snafu’s thoughts loud and clear as if he is standing on the other side of the door speaking. He sounds impatient.

“It’s just me,” Burgie calls before he pushes the door open, revealing Snafu sitting and smoking by the window.   

Snafu glances over at him with tired eyes and plucks the cigarette out of his mouth and studies it. “How did it go?” Snafu asks, stumping the embers out with his darkened thumb already coated in tar and charcoal.

“It went fine. Sledge’s mom hopes you feel better soon.”

_‘fuck i hope so too’_ Snafu thinks as he turns back to the window to stare out on the rapidly darkening outside world with a hum, unwilling to talk anymore.

The conversation with Sledge still resonates in his ears from earlier alongside Snafu’s memories that have been flashing before Burgie’s eyes all day. Looking upon Snafu now, sitting there in Burgie’s sweater that is too big for him even now, it makes something spark in his brain. It’s not quite an idea, but some sort of vague understanding.

“Snafu...you and Sledge –,” Burgie has always suspected, he guess. He has never willingly admitted it to himself up until now – maybe it had been some kind of self-preservation or maybe even worry for what it’d mean for his friends – but somehow it is suddenly important for him to know for certain. Because that, alongside all the information Snafu assaulted him with earlier and Sledge’s behaviour as of late, makes the picture he’s been trying to see for weeks now the slightest bit clearer. “You don’t think that’s the reason you're like this?”

The room falls into an oppressing silence.

Snafu is like a statue in his seat, his hand hanging frozen in mid-air where it’s stopped on its’ way to put the cigarette back between his lips. His lips that are hanging open as he gapes at Burgie, eyes wide like a deer’s.

_‘oh no oh no oh no he knows he knows, please do not hate me i do not want you to hate me, oh my god gene i am so fucking sorry this is my fault shit, this is all my fault’._

Sensing the beginning of a panic attack, Burgie rushes to Snafu’s side, crouching down next to him and grips his hand like Snafu had done for him just earlier that day. “Hey, Snaf’. It’s alright. It ain’t shit. Y’hear me?” Burgie tries to reassure him, squeezing tight to ground Snafu. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Fuck,” Snafu exhales shaky, looking completely lost. _‘what if he is right maybe he is right, but i left eugene since i could not be with him, am i like this because i could not be with eugene when i am a man'._

Burgie gives his hand another squeeze. “Maybe.”

“Will you tell Eugene?” Snafu murmurs quietly, refusing to meet Burgie’s eye. _‘he would blame himself’._

While it might have just been what would be needed to make the two finally talk together, Burgie has never been more assured in his decision as he says, “No, Merriell. This ain’t any of my business. This is a matter between you and Sledge, and it is up to you whether you decide to tell him or not.”

Snafu’s only response is squeezing Burgie's hand in return and they sit in silence for a long time, taking solace in each other’s company, as they contemplate what to do about this new and uncertain revelation of theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


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